Rand was born on October 29, 1886 in Brooklyn, New York. Her father, Lyman Fiske Rand, was the manager of a manufacturing company. Rand graduated from the Educated Girls High School in Brooklyn in 1904 and received her undergraduate B.A. degree in experimental psychology from Cornell University in 1908. She went on to receive her MA and PhD in psychology in 1911 from Bryn Mawr College. Her dissertation, under the supervision of the experimental psychologist Clarence E. Ferree, was titled “The factors that influence the sensitivity of the retina to color: A quantitative study and methods of standardizing.” Rand married her former supervisor, Ferree, in 1918, but retained her maiden name professionally. They worked together until his death in 1943.
Career and Research
After receiving her degree, Rand continued at Bryn Mawr as a postdoctoral fellow. In 1912, she became a Sarah Berliner Research Fellow from the Associate of Collegiate Alumni, now the American Association of University Women. From 1913 till 1927, she worked in experimental psychology at Bryn Mawr, where she was a professor and researcher. At Bryn Mawr, Rand's research focused on developing techniques for measuring the light sensitivity and color discrimination of different parts of the retina. She and her husband Ferree created a map of the retina known as the Ferree-Rand perimeter. From 1924-1927, Rand served on the National Research Council's Committee on Industrial Lighting. In 1928, she left Bryn Mawr to join work for the Wilmer Ophthalmological Institute of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. There, she taught as an associate professor, first research ophthamology and later physiological optics. Together with her husband Ferree, she developed a vision research laboratory. She became the Director of the Research Laboratory of Physiological Optics in 1935. At Johns Hopkins, Rand took on many projects, many involving industrial lighting. Upon her husband's death in 1943, Rand moved to New York City as a research associate at Columbia University’s Knapp Foundation of the College of Physicians and Surgeons. She retired in 1957. Along with collaborators Legrand Hardy and M. Catherine Rittler, she researched the detection and assessment of color blindness and developed the Hardy-Rand-Rittler plate, known as the HRR pseudo-isochromatic color blindness test.
Awards and Recognition
Rand was the first female fellow of the Illuminating Society of North America in 1952 and received a gold medal from them in 1963. Rand was a member of the American Psychological Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She authored and co-authored over one hundred research papers in her career. She received the Optical Society’s Edgar D. Tillyer Medal in 1959, the first woman to do so. Rand was also a member of the first class of OSA Fellows in 1959, one of ony five of the 115 members included in this first class.
