Ernest Just

Ernest Just of Charleston, South Carolina was a zoologist, biologist, and research scientist in the field of physical chemistry. According to "African Americans in the Sciences" Ernest Just was involved with "research on egg fertilization, experimental parthenogenesis, hydration, cell division, dehydration in living cells, the effects of ultraviolet rays in increasing chromosome numbers in animals and in the altering the organization of the egg with special reference to polarity."

Ernest Just was the son of a builder of wharves and a teacher. Ernest Just graduated from Dartmouth in 1907 at the top of his class with a degree in zoology, and later became the head of the Department of Zoology at Howard University. Ernest Just performed seminal work in cell biology at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, working there only in the summers because he could not obtain a full-time position, but nonetheless managing to publish over 70 scientific papers.