Black History Month - Spotlight on Scientists by John Whiteaker

Mae Jemison

jwhiteaker — 2021-02-08 04:53:11 UTC

Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett

jwhiteaker — 2021-02-08 04:54:13 UTC

Marie Maynard Daly -submitted by Armani H.

2021-02-11 04:07:53 UTC

American Biochemist
Marie Maynard Daly was the first African-American women to earn her PhD in chemistry.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

26009211 — 2021-02-11 15:02:12 UTC

Alice Ball

2600666 — 2021-02-11 15:15:26 UTC

George Washington Carver

26011021 — 2021-02-11 15:47:32 UTC

African-American Agricultural scientist
George Washington Carver was an agricultural scientist and inventor who developed hundreds of products using peanuts (though not peanut butter, as is often claimed), sweet potatoes and soybeans. More on George Washington Carver in the website https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/george-washington-carver#:~:text=George%20Washington%20Carver%20was%20an,)%2C%20sweet%20potatoes%20and%20soybeans.

Katherine Johnson

26010231 — 2021-02-11 16:21:40 UTC

Mary Jackson

2600120 — 2021-02-11 18:02:04 UTC

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-names-headquarters-after-hidden-figure-mary-w-jackson

Emmett Chappelle

2600838 — 2021-02-11 19:33:48 UTC

Jackie Robinson

2021-02-11 21:02:36 UTC

Madeline Swegle

jwhiteaker — 2021-02-12 01:36:32 UTC

Ronald McNair

2600928 — 2021-02-12 18:27:45 UTC

Leland Melvin

jwhiteaker — 2021-02-12 18:30:33 UTC

Benjamin Banneker

2021-02-12 18:38:30 UTC

Olivia Hooker

jwhiteaker — 2021-02-12 20:59:09 UTC

Gladys West

jwhiteaker — 2021-02-16 15:35:30 UTC

Alexa Irene Canady

jwhiteaker — 2021-02-16 15:37:36 UTC

Dr. Ellamae Simmons

jwhiteaker — 2021-02-16 20:35:54 UTC

Ernest Everett Just - submitted by Alaysia M.

2021-02-17 15:39:38 UTC

Ernest Everett Just was a pioneering African-American biologist, academic and science writer. Just's primary legacy is is recognition of the fundamental role of the cell surface in development of organisms.

Carl Cotton

jwhiteaker — 2021-02-17 21:36:17 UTC

Katherine Johnson Biography

2021-02-19 01:43:24 UTC

https://www.nasa.gov/content/katherine-johnson-biography - Amelia

Dr. Ngozi Ezike - submitted by Mrs. Fisher

jwhiteaker — 2021-02-19 18:11:31 UTC

Herman Brenner White, Jr. - submitted by Mrs. Fisher

jwhiteaker — 2021-02-19 18:13:53 UTC

Otis Boykin

2600933 — 2021-02-19 18:14:54 UTC

https://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/otis-boykin

Marie Maynard Daly

2601068 — 2021-02-19 19:29:53 UTC

Marie Maynard Daly is the first African American woman to receive a doctoral degree

Marian Anderson

2021-02-20 00:48:19 UTC

Oscar Micheaux

26010201 — 2021-02-20 00:49:50 UTC

Carolyn Parker

26010141 — 2021-02-22 15:15:37 UTC

Carolyn Parker was the first African-American Woman known to gain postgraduate degree in physics. - Maya K.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

2021-02-22 15:51:08 UTC

I think we all know him so i dont need to say much besides hes a famous scientist.

Beth A. Brown

2600744 — 2021-02-24 01:34:46 UTC

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/beth-a-brown-1969-2008/

Raye Montague

jwhiteaker — 2021-02-24 20:25:53 UTC

Valerie L. Thomas

jwhiteaker — 2021-02-25 14:24:09 UTC

Valerie L. Thomas (born February 8, 1943) is an American scientist and inventor. She invented the illusion transmitter, for which she received a patent in 1980. She was responsible for developing the digital media formats image processing systems used in the early years of the Landsat program.

Percy Lavon Julian

2601094 — 2021-02-26 16:13:46 UTC

emmett chappelle

2600300 — 2021-02-26 17:56:42 UTC

he found the ATP fluorescent assay

2600300 — 2021-02-26 17:59:43 UTC

Jimmy LuValle

2700940 — 2022-02-01 15:36:31 UTC

James Ellis LuValle was an American athlete and scientist. He won the bronze medal in the 400 metres at the 1936 Summer Olympics, and was an accomplished chemist and founder of the Graduate Students Association at the University of California, Los Angeles. Born: November 10, 1912, San Antonio, TX. Died: January 30, 1993, Te Anau, New Zealand. Height: 6′ 1″. Education: California Institute of Technology. Medal: Athletics at the 1936 Summer Olympics – Men's 400 metres.

Ronald McNair

2700619 — 2022-02-01 19:45:39 UTC

McNair was born October 21, 1950, in Lake City, South Carolina, to Pearl M. and Carl C. McNair. He had two brothers, Carl and Eric A. McNair. In the summer of 1959, he refused to leave the segregated Lake City Public Library without being allowed to check out his books. After the police and his mother were called, he was allowed to borrow books from the library; the building that housed the library at the time is now named after him.^[1] A children's book, Ron's Big Mission, offers a fictionalized account of this event. His brother, Carl also wrote the official biography, In the Spirit of Ronald E. McNair—Astronaut: An American Hero.

McNair graduated as valedictorian of Carver High School in 1967.^[2]

In 1971, he received a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering physics, magna 🤬 laude, from the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro, North Carolina.^[3]

In 1976, he received a Ph.D. degree in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the guidance of Michael Feld, becoming nationally recognised for his work in the field of laser physics. Also in 1976, he won the AAU Karate gold medal. He would subsequently win 5 regional championships and earn a 5th degree black belt in karate.^[4]

After graduation from MIT (receiving four honorary doctorates, as well as a score of fellowships and commendations), he became a staff physicist at the Hughes Research Lab in Malibu, California.

McNair was a member of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity ^[3] and a member of the Bahá'í Faith.^[5]

Edward Bouchet

2700543 — 2022-02-01 19:50:06 UTC

Edward Alexander Bouchet (September 15, 1852 – October 28, 1918) was an American physicist and educator and was the first African American to earn a Ph.D.

Jewel Plummer Cobb

Kaden2700046 — 2022-02-01 20:14:00 UTC

research advanced our understanding of the skin cells that produce melanin and how those cells become cancerous, but she has also led the way for equal access to education and professional opportunities for women and minorities. Despite personal challenges stemming from racism and sexism, she was committed to using her success to encourage women and minorities to enter the fields of science, mathematics, and engineering.Cobb’s family was steeped in the medical profession. Her grandfather, a freed slave, had graduated from Howard College in 1898 with a degree in pharmacy and her father was a physician. The third generation of medical professionals, Cobb was born in Chicago, the daughter of Frank Plummer and Carriebel Cole Plummer, a schoolteacher. Though forced by segregation to attend less academically rigorous public schools, Cobb determined early on that she would not be deterred. She became interested in biology when she first examined cells through a microscope in high school.Cobb first attended the University of Michigan, but left the school because of its lingering culture of discrimination, ultimately earning her B.A. in Biology from traditionally black Talladega College in Alabama. She then applied for a teaching fellowship at New York University but was rejected because of her race. She personally visited the school to present her credentials and was ultimately accepted to the position. She began teaching at NYU in 1945 and received her M.S. in cell physiology in 1947 and Ph.D. in 1950.Upon her graduation, Cobb began working in the field of cancer research, becoming a fellow at the National Cancer Institute. From 1952 to 1954, she directed the Tissue Culture Laboratory at the University of Illinois, then went on to teach and conduct research at New York University, Hunter College, and Sarah Lawrence College. Cobb began researching the effects of chemotherapy drugs on human cells infected with cancer. Primarily concerned with melanoma, a type of skin cancer, her research included skin pigment cells and focused specifically on melanin, which gives skin its pigmentation. Her findings continue to be useful to scientists as they work to create new and more effective cancer fighting tools.In 1967, she came to Connecticut where she was appointed Dean and Professor of Zoology at Connecticut College in New London. Along with her continued research, she also began to institute and fund model programs to encourage and retain women and under-represented minorities who sought to enter traditionally white male-dominated fields. When she left Connecticut College in 1975 to become Dean at Douglass College, the women’s division within Rutgers University, she continued her work to improve the access of women and minorities to science and mathematics fields. Though the college already had a strong presence of women mathematicians and chemistry professors, Cobb worked to attract more women to the sciences with new programs. In 1979, she published “Filters for Women in Science,” an article in which she exposed how educational systems and other “filters” discouraged women from careers in science and math, which ultimately affected their university tenure and equal pay.Cobb was appointed President of California State University at Fullerton in 1981. During her tenure at CSUF she obtained state funds to construct new science and engineering buildings and found funding to build the university’s first apartment complex, thus ending Fullerton’s status as a commuter college. Perhaps even more importantly, Cobb developed a president’s opportunity program for minority students and set up faculty teams to tutor students in mathematics in an attempt to boost their achievement in college courses.Cobb retired from Fullerton in 1991. In addition to serving on many boards of trustees, she is the recipient of more than twenty honorary degrees. In 1993 she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Science. The Center for Excellence selected her to receive the Achievement in Excellence Award in 1999 and, in 2001, she was the first recipient of the Reginald Wilson Award for significant and noteworthy accomplishments in the area of diversity in higher education.Throughout her career, Jewel Plummer Cobb worked tirelessly to promote opportunities for young women and minorities to enter the sciences and other traditionally white male-dominated fields. When public funds ran dry, she turned to private sources and never veered from her belief that education was the key to a life of success and Independence (Wikipida)

Bettye Washington Greene

27001601 — 2022-02-01 21:45:45 UTC

Bettye Washington was born in Fort Worth, Texas.^[3] She attended segregated public schools and graduated from I.M. Terrell High School around 1952.

She entered Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, graduating with a B.S. in chemistry in 1955. Following her marriage to Veteran Air force Captain William Miller Greene in 1955, she attended Wayne State University in Detroit, where she earned her Ph.D. in physical chemistry working with Wilfred Heller(1962).^[4] She also taught undergraduate chemistry at this time.^[5] Her doctoral dissertation, "Determination of particle size distributions in emulsions by light scattering" was published in 1965.^[6]

George Washington Carver

27003861 — 2022-02-07 15:39:30 UTC

George Washington Carver (1864 – January 5, 1943) was an American agricultural scientist and inventor who promoted alternative crops to cotton and methods to prevent soil depletion. He was the most prominent black scientist of the early 20th century.

While a professor at Tuskegee Institute, Carver developed techniques to improve soils depleted by repeated plantings of cotton. He wanted poor farmers to grow other crops, such as peanuts and sweet potatoes, as a source of their own food and to improve their quality of life. The most popular of his 44 practical bulletins for farmers contained 105 food recipes using peanuts. Although he spent years developing and promoting numerous products made from peanuts, none became commercially successful.

Apart from his work to improve the lives of farmers, Carver was also a leader in promoting environmentalism. He received numerous honors for his work, including the Spingarn Medal of the NAACP. In an era of high racial polarization, his fame reached beyond the black community. He was widely recognized and praised in the white community for his many achievements and talents. In 1941, Time magazine dubbed Carver a "Black Leonardo".

Color film of Carver shot in 1937 at the Tuskegee Institute by African American surgeon Allen Alexander was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2019. The 12 minutes of footage includes Carver in his apartment, office and laboratory, as well as images of him tending flowers and displaying his paintings. The film was digitized by The National Archives as part of its multi-year effort to preserve and make available the historically significant film collections of the National Park Service.

Neil Degrasse Tyson

2700619 — 2022-02-07 20:02:54 UTC

Neil deGrasse Tyson (/ˈdəˈɡræs/; born October 5, 1958) is an American astrophysicist, author, and science communicator. He is currently the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space and a research associate in the department of astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History.

Tyson was born in the borough Manhattan of New York City, New York. He graduated from The Bronx High School of Science.^[1] He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Physics from Harvard University.^[1] He earned his doctorate degree in Astrophysics from Columbia University.^[1] He lives in Lower Manhattan with his wife and two children.^[2]

In December 2018, Tyson was accused on sexual misconduct by many female former students.^[3] He said that the allegations were not true, but Fox and National Geographic announced that they would launch an investigation into the matter.^[4]

Benjamin Banneker

2700619 — 2022-02-07 20:05:38 UTC

Benjamin Banneker was born on November 9, 1731 in Baltimore County, Maryland. His parents are Mary Banneky, a free black, and Robert, a freed slave from Guinea.^[2]^[3]^[4]

Marie Maynard Daly

2700464 — 2022-02-08 15:41:11 UTC

Born: April 16, 1921, Corona, New York, NY
Died: October 28, 2003, New York, NY

Marie Maynard Daly was an American biochemist. She was the first African-American woman in the United States to earn a Ph.D. in chemistry.

Mae C. Jemison

2700950 — 2022-02-09 01:35:53 UTC

Mae C. Jemison is an American astronaut and physician who, on June 4, 1987, became the first African American woman to be admitted into NASA’s astronaut training program. On September 12, 1992, Jemison finally flew into space with six other astronauts aboard the Endeavour on mission STS47, becoming the first African American woman in space. In recognition of her accomplishments, Jemison has received several awards and honorary doctorates. Discover space with your students here: (Also one of my favs not sure why tho but yea)

Mary Jackson

2700950 — 2022-02-10 15:40:11 UTC

Mary Jackson was an American mathematician and aerospace engineer who in 1958 became the first African American female engineer to work at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Much of her work centred on the airflow around aircraft. Discover more about engineering here:

Guion S. Bluford, Jr.

2700950 — 2022-02-14 15:41:42 UTC

Guion S. Bluford, Jr. is an astronaut who was the first African American launched into space. Bluford received an undergraduate degree in aerospace engineering from Pennsylvania State University in 1964 and was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Air Force, where he trained as a fighter pilot.

Beebe Steven Lynk

2700567 — 2022-02-16 15:23:33 UTC

Beebe Steven Lynk was one of the first African American women to earn a doctorate in pharmaceutical chemistry and teach in a medical school in the United States.
She served as the professor of medical Latin botany and materia medica at the University of West Tennessee. She was an active member of the early black women's club movement, authoring a book, Advice to Colored Women in 1896.

Shirley Ann Jackson

2700950 — 2022-02-25 15:05:26 UTC

Shirley Ann Jackson was the first Black woman to earn a PhD from MIT, where she studied nuclear physics. She is currently the 18th president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the oldest technological research university in the United States. She has been a trailblazer throughout her career, including becoming the first African-American woman to lead a top-ranked research university. Learn more about physics:

St. Elmo Brady

27004261 — 2022-02-28 14:54:21 UTC

St. Elmo Brady was the first African-American to receive a Ph.D. in chemistry. Equally as significant, Brady went on to build chemistry curricula, faculty, programs and facilities at four major historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), where he and his colleagues mentored multiple generations of African- American chemists. His life was truly an inspiration to all who had the privilege to meet him, and his legacy lives on. For his life-long accomplishments, Brady is being honored by the American Chemical Society with a National Historic Chemical Landmark. The Landmark is being designated and celebrated at the University of Illinois, Urbana- Champaign, where he received his Ph.D. in 1916, and at the four HBCUs where he served in leadership positions: Tuskegee University, Howard University, Fisk University and Tougaloo College.

Brady was born on Dec. 22, 1884, in Louisville, Kentucky, the eldest of three children of Thomas Alexander Brady and Celester (Parker) Brady. He graduated from Louisville Colored High School in 1903 and at the age of 20 left home to attend Fisk, an all-black college in Nashville, Tennessee, founded in 1866. There, his chemistry teacher, Thomas W. Talley, encouraged him to study chemistry.

Brady graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1908 and took a teaching position at Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (now Tuskegee University) in Alabama. After four years teaching at Tuskegee, Brady was offered a scholarship to study at the University of Illinois, Urbana- Champaign. He took a leave of absence from Tuskegee and began at Illinois in the summer session of 1913. He completed his M.S. in chemistry in 1914 and continued his graduate studies under Professor Clarence G. Derick.

Brady published three scholarly abstracts with Derick in Science between 1914 and 1915 and also collaborated with Professor George Beal on a paper titled “The Hydrochloride Method for the Determination of Alkaloids,” published in the Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry.

Brady’s main focus for his Ph.D. research was settling a scientific disagreement between his advisor and the eminent Harvard chemist Arthur Michael. Derick and Michael disagreed on how the acidity of carboxylic acids was affected by replacing hydrogen atoms on the carbon chain with other chemical groups. In his Ph.D. research, Brady investigated the acidity of straight- chain carboxylic acids in which a pair of hydrogen atoms was replaced with an oxygen atom to give a keto acid.

Brady’s research resulted in a number of firsts, including new methods for preparing and purifying certain compounds and clarifying the influence of carbonyl groups on the acidity of carboxylic acids, an early contribution to the nascent field of physical organic chemistry. Brady’s studies supported Derick’s view, and he and others concluded that Michael’s view was incorrect.

Brady completed his Ph.D. after only two years, giving an oral defense of his 228-page dissertation, titled “The Scale of Influence of Substituents in Paraffine Monobasic Acids. The Divalent Oxygen Atom,” on May 22, 1916. He was the 40th person to receive a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Illinois, which granted its first chemistry doctorate in 1903, and the first African-American chemist to earn that distinction in the U.S.

Brady was well aware of the challenges he overcame and his role in breaking down barriers. He lived in a segregated community, where finding housing was among the many challenges he faced. Yet he didn’t talk about any of the difficulties, said his granddaughter, Carol Brady Fonvielle, in an interview. Her grandfather had a good sense of humor and cared for all people, she said. “My grandparents used to speak in terms of being good for the race.”

Notably, while at the University of Illinois, Brady became in 1914 the first African-American admitted to Phi Lambda Upsilon, the chemistry honor society, and in 1915 was one of the first African-Americans to be inducted into Sigma Xi, the science honor society. In November 1916, The Crisis, the monthly magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, selected Brady for its biographical sketch as “Man of the Month.”

Mae Jemison.

2024-02-26 20:19:23 UTC

Mae Carol Jemison (born October 17, 1956) is an American engineer, physician, and former NASA astronaut. She became the first African-American woman to travel into space when she served as a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1992. Jemison joined NASA's astronaut corps in 1987 and was selected to serve for the STS-47 mission, during which the Endeavour orbited the Earth for nearly eight days on September 12–20, 1992.

Born in Alabama and raised in Chicago, Jemison graduated from Stanford University with degrees in chemical engineering as well as African and African-American studies. She then earned her medical degree from Cornell University. Jemison was a doctor for the Peace Corps in Liberia and Sierra Leone from 1983 until 1985 and worked as a general practitioner. In pursuit of becoming an astronaut, she applied to NASA.

Jemison left NASA in 1993 and founded a technology research company. She later formed a non-profit educational foundation and through the foundation is the principal of the 100 Year Starship project funded by DARPA. Jemison also wrote several books for children and appeared on television several times, including in a 1993 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. She holds several honorary doctorates and has been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame and the International Space Hall of Fame.

Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson—who worked as "human computers" at NASA during the 1960s Space Race.

2026-02-09 16:04:47 UTC

They are basically superwomen. (^-^)