O’dell Moreno Owens

Dr. O’dell Moreno Owens achieved Cincinnati’s first successful in vitro fertilization in 1982. A year later, he perfected the technique and announced the first successful pregnancy from a frozen embryo. In reaching the top of his field, Black Enterprise magazine named him one of the top 15 black doctors in America in 1986. Owens credits Cincinnati City Schools with providing the impetus to excel. “My high school experience was a tale with two parts,” Owens said. “I flunked out of Walnut Hills (High School) at the end of eighth grade and transferred to Cincinnati City’s Woodward High School.  “At that time, Woodward was in transition, going from a predominately Caucasian student population to one with some initial diversity. My graduating class was 10% African-American. Despite some racial tension … toward black students, I had a good high school experience.” Owens bonded and associated with other African-American students as well as whites who believed in accepting people for who they were instead of how they looked, he said. Owens joined various clubs, including the prep club, which was his favorite.   After graduating in 1966, he attended Antioch College and spent his third year of college at Makerere University in Uganda. At Yale School of Medicine, he earned his medical degree and master's in public health. During his four-year residency in obstetrics and gynecology, he received the Irvin Freeman Award as outstanding chief resident. Owens was the first African-American to complete a fellowship in reproductive endocrinology at Harvard Medical School, where he served on the faculty in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology. Later, he established the first division of reproductive endocrinology at the University of Cincinnati. Owens has served on boards for many organizations, including chair of the University of Cincinnati and Cincinnati Health Department boards. He currently is the longest serving director on the U.S. Bancorp Board of Directors. “I am proud that I am a public high school graduate,” Owens said. “The public education that I received provided the platform for me to obtain three degrees.”