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Mon, 06.15.1942

Cora B. Marrett, Sociologist born

Cora Marrett

*Cora Marrett was born on this date in 1942. She is a Black professor and sociologist.

Cora Bagley was born in Kenbridge, Virginia, to Horace Bagley and Clorann (Boswell) Bagley. Her father was a carpenter, and her mother was a housewife and part-time maid. Her parents only had a sixth-grade education, and Marrett was the youngest of 12 children. Marrett received her undergraduate degree from the historically black Virginia Union University in Richmond, Virginia. In 1968, she graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a Ph.D. in sociology.

She is a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin, where she has had a tenure since 1974. From 1992 through 1996, Marrett worked for the National Science Foundation as the Assistant Director for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Studies. She was also the Assistant Director for Education and Human Resources. From 1996 to 1998, she served by appointment on the Board of Governors of the Argonne National Laboratory. She was a member of a peer-review oversight group for the National Institutes of Health.

From 1997 to 2001, she was provost, senior vice chancellor for academic affairs, and a professor of sociology and Afro-American studies at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. In 2007 Dr. Marrett took leave from the University of Wisconsin to assume her current post as assistant director for education and human resources at the National Science Foundation.

She earned her master’s and Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. In May 2011, Marrett returned to the National Science Foundation as the Deputy Director, a post she held until August 2014. Marrett has also served as NSF's acting director from June to October 2010 and from March 2013 to March 2014.

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