 Bowling earned her PhD in 1969 at the University of California , Davis , completing her thesis on the genetics of plants under the supervision of G. Ledyard Stebbins . She joined the faculty of Occidental College in Los Angeles in 1968 , then was hired by UC Davis in 1973 , and at the time of her death in 2000 was an adjunct professor and executive associate director of the Veterinary Genetics Laboratory ( VGL ) at UC Davis . 
