Zemurray Professor of Anthropology emerita Cora DuBois, who taught at the University for 15 years, died Sunday in a Brookline nursing home. She was 87 years old.

DuBois, who retired in 1969, died of pneumonia and heart failure, said Jeanne Taylor, who was her companion for more than 40 years.

Taylor said Du Bois was "scholarly and serious about life." The former anthropologist suffered a brain damaging stroke three years ago and spent the last eight months in a nursing home, Taylor said.

Du Bois was born in New York City and graduated from Barnard College in 1927 with a bachelor's degree. She received a master's from Columbia University in 1929 and a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1932.

During World War II, Du Bois researched for the U.S. Office of Strategic Services. She served as a social science consultant to the United Nations World Health Organization from 1949 to 1951 and then was the research director at the Institute of International Education until 1954.

During her early years at Harvard, Du Bois initiated a long-term research project in Bhubaneshwar, India. She also took on outside responsibilities in her later teaching years. She was the president of the American Anthropological Association in 1968-69.

Du Bois served as the president of the Association for Asian Studies from 1969-70 before she was "recalled to service" at Harvard for the fall term of 1971. In 1972, she became a professor at large at Cornell University.