Margaret MEAD was an American anthropologist who made significant contributions to the field of anthropology. She is best known for her studies of the Samoan people and her research on the effects of culture on personality. Her most famous work, Coming of Age in Samoa, was published in 1928. MEAD also wrote several other books and articles, and she was a professor at Columbia University from 1956 until her death in 1978. Her four-letter surname was MEAD.