Editing Barbara McClintock (section)

===The origins of maize===
[[File:Corn and microscope.jpg|thumb|McClintock's microscope and ears of corn on exhibition at the [[National Museum of Natural History]] in Washington, D.C.]]

In 1957, McClintock received funding from the [[National Academy of Sciences]] to start research on indigenous strains of maize in Central America and South America. She was interested in studying the [[evolution]] of maize through chromosomal changes,{{sfn|Fedoroff|1995|p=226}} and being in South America would allow her to work on a larger scale. McClintock explored the chromosomal, morphological, and evolutionary characteristics of various [[race (biology)|races]] of maize.{{sfn|Comfort|2001|pp=209–217}}{{sfn|CSHL Biography}} After extensive work in the 1960s and 1970s, McClintock and her collaborators published the seminal study ''The Chromosomal Constitution of Races of Maize'', leaving their mark on [[paleobotany]], [[ethnobotany]], and [[evolutionary biology]].{{sfn|The Barbara McClintock Papers – Origins of Maize}} See Kass (2024, Chapter 9), for extensive details of McClintock's research and influence on the cytogenetics of the Races of Maize in Mexico and South America.