Mary Collins (1895-1989)

Mary Collins (1895-1989), an expert in colour vision, was a Lecturer in Psychology at Edinburgh University.

Mary Collins graduated M.A. from Edinburgh University in 1917, going on to obtain a B.Ed. (1919) and a Ph.D. (1923). Upon completing her doctoral work, she was appointed as a Lecturer in Psychology. Besides publishing a monograph Colour-Blindness: With a Comparison of Different Methods of Testing Colour-Blindness, she collaborated on a number of publications with Sir James Drever (1873-1950), Head of Department, and, from 1931, Edinburgh University's first Professor of Psychology. These included Experimental Psychology (1926), A First Laboratory Guide in Psychology (1926), Performance Tests of Intelligence (1928), and Psychology and Practical Life (1936). She would later write an appreciate obituary of Drever for the British Psychological Journal (1951). She subsequently worked closely with Boris Semeonoff (1910-1998). Collins was promoted to Senior Lecturer by 1950 and Reader in Psychology by 1956. She retired before 1962.