GoKawiilDolly Parton on stage at The Dominion Theatre in London, United Kingdom, in 1983.Credit: Pete Still/Redferns via Getty
Legendary country musician Dolly Parton has died at the age of 80 after “a brief battle with cancer”, her representatives said in a statement on 25 August.
Parton, who was born into a poor farming family in Locust Ridge, Tennessee, in 1946, became a singer and performer during her early childhood, and earned a total of 10 Grammys during her career.
But she also left a mark on science, public health and education. She donated to medical centres, vaccine research, and disaster relief, and had one of the most famous animals in science named after her: Dolly, the cloned sheep.
Scientists around the world paid tribute to Parton following the news of her death.
“Dolly provided the soundtrack for my PhD, and is gratefully acknowledged in my thesis as a key contributor! She was the very best of us: we should all strive to be more like Dolly (rhinestones and all)”, Catherine Heymans, Astronomer Royal for Scotland, told Nature by e-mail.
“Today is a sad day as we mourn an exceptional artist, a true champion of kindness, and ambassador of science and public health,” wrote Tedros Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, on the social media platform X.
Others reflected on the way Parton wielded her fame for good. “Few celebrities use their influence to support science so meaningfully,” wrote Gaurav Kansagara, a cell biologist at the Institute for Stem Cell Science and Regenerative Medicine in Bangalore, India, on Bluesky.
Here are five ways that Dolly Parton contributed to science.
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