Born February 3, 1921, Rosalind B. (Schwartz) Marimont obtained her B.A. (1942) in chemistry from Hunter College. She worked first as a physicist (1942-1960) for the National Bureau of Standards (National Institute of Standards and Technology), then as an independent investigator and mathematician (1960-1979) for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) until her retirement.



As a physicist for the National Bureau of Standards, Marimont initially worked on electronics for the defense effort during World War II. She eventually moved on to work on the logical design of early digital computers of the 1950s. She is credited with work on the computer precedence algorithm and the synthesis of Boolean matrix and graph theory. As an independent investigator and mathematician for the NIH, Marimont researched topics such as human vision and speech. She was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).



While at the NIH, Marimont became active in the fight for equal rights for women. She was a founder, active member and chairperson of Self-Help for Equal Rights (SHER), a professional organization within the NIH (founded in 1970) that provided support to women who had complaints of workplace discrimination. In addition, Marimont served on the NIH's EEO Goals Task Force, established by an EEO Officer to study the NIH's employment profile and submit suggestions for ensuring equal employment opportunities. In 1975, the task force submitted its FAIR [Feasible Allocation to Improve Representation] Report which outlined the systematic method for setting numeric goals for the employment of women and minorities which the task force had constructed.



In 1973, Marimont filed a class-action lawsuit charging the NIH with sex discrimination. She had attempted to resolve this complaint through the EEO (Equal Employment Opportunity) grievance system at NIH, but due to the length of time this procedure was taking she decided to file the lawsuit. Marimont had remained at the GS-13 level, which she had reached while working at the National Bureau of Standards, despite recommendations from her supervisor for a promotion. Even though she received a promotion around the time of filing the lawsuit, she continued with the suit in order to facilitate fair treatment of women working at the NIH. Six years after the lawsuit was filed, Judge Harold Green ruled in 1979 that the NIH create "fair and definite" promotion procedures for scientists and that the NIH should pay Marimont's attorney fees and retroactive wages.



In retirement Marimont was critical of government statistics reporting on the annual number of smoking-related deaths. In 1998, she co-wrote an article ("Lies, damned lies, & 400,000 smoking-related deaths") with Robert A. Levy of the Cato Institute scrutinizing the number of deaths directly attributed to smoking.



She married Martin Marimont and together they had two children: Rachael and David. Rosalind Marimont died March 15, 2004, at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, Maryland.