Virginia Beach, Va. – September 28, 2026 -- The Howard and Georgeanna Jones Foundation for Reproductive Medicine and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) are offering a $100,000 grant, the Georgeanna Seegar Jones, MD, Women of the Hall Investigative Scientist Award, to fund research improving assisted reproductive technology techniques used in in vitro fertilization, including bridge funding for career scientists.
Dr. Georgeanna Seegar Jones joins nine other women in the 2026 National Women's Hall of Fame class
Dr. Jones was inducted on September 24, 2026, during the biennial ceremony run by the National Women's Hall of Fame, an organization that has honored American women since 1973.
Jones proved in 1938 that the placenta, not the pituitary gland, produces the pregnancy hormone HCG
As a medical student at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, she made the discovery that redefined understanding of pregnancy hormone production. In 1949, as Director of the Laboratory of Reproductive Physiology at Johns Hopkins, she determined that a post-ovulation progesterone deficiency was both significant and treatable.
Her hormone protocol contributed to the 1981 birth of Elizabeth Carr, the first IVF baby born in the United States
In the late 1970s, Jones adapted her infertility protocol combining menopausal gonadotropin and chorionic gonadotrophin therapy to IVF techniques, raising success rates and establishing clinical protocols still used in IVF practice today.
Foundation chairman ties the new $100,000 award directly to Jones's legacy
Robert W. Jones, Chairman of the Jones Foundation, said the organization founded in 1984 by Dr. Georgeanna Jones and her husband, Dr. Howard W. Jones, Jr., will continue investing in career scientists and physicians working in reproductive medicine research.
Applicants can find grant guidelines through the Jones Foundation and ASRM.