During 1955, Dr. Pittman agreed to serve as president of the Washington Academy of Sciences, which was a one-year term.[10] In 1958, her years of tireless research were rewarded when she was named Chief of the Laboratory of Bacterial Products, a post she held until her retirement in 1971. The first woman to head an NIH laboratory, Pittman never complained about sex discrimination, but for historians looking back, it is hard not to wonder whether a man who arrived at any institution with an international reputation for research achievements equivalent to hers would have been made to wait twenty years for such advancement.