Ernest Just was born in Charleston, South Carolina, and became a distinguished zoologist, biologist, and physiologist. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1907, with degrees in history and biology. He subsequently taught English at Howard University, and he helped form the University's first drama club. He pursued graduate studies at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts and in 1916 received his doctorate in the physiology of development from the University of Chicago. He undertook much of his later research in Europe, where he felt he could live with more freedom as a black man. He served as the head of the zoology department at Howard.

Source:
"The Faces of Science: African Americans in the Sciences." Princeton University. 4 June, 2000. http://www.princeton.edu/~mcbrown/display/just.html. 11 February, 2005.

Fitzpatrick, Sandra and Maria R. Goodwin. The Guide to Black Washington. Hippocrene Books: New York, 2001.