Marie Pelissier

Marie Emmanuelle Pelissier, PhD, was born in Port-au-Prince in 1906, to a family of prominent Haitian artists and politicians. She received her BA in Art History from the Université du Port-au-Prince, and her PhD in Greater American Studies from Université des Sciences-Politiques Toussaint L'Ouverture. In 1932, she met Dr. Marian Walshe Prideaux on an expedition to the Peruvian cloud forest and was subsequently offered a position in the Mesoamerican division of Robicheaux Women's College's History Department.

In 1935, Pelissier was part of the ill-fated Robicheaux Expedition into the depths of the Rio Negro basin. She has not been seen since.