Women of Color & Their Impact on STEM
Women from traditionally underrepresented communities have overcome racial and gender biases, advanced in their STEM careers, and made a stamp on the STEM world. Here are just a few of the MANY women we celebrate and admire!
Mae Carol Jemison studied chemical engineering and Afro-American studies at Stanford University on a National Achievement Scholarship at age 16. She then went on to attend Cornell University Medical College. After graduation, she worked as a general practitioner and a Peace Corps medical officer for Sierra Leone and Liberia. She returned to the United States and was selected as one of 15 candidates from a 2,000-applicant pool for NASA’s astronaut training program, becoming the first African American woman to be admitted.
Dame Elizabeth Anionwu began working in the NHS at the age of 16. She helped set up the first nurse-led sickle cell and thalassemia screening and counseling center. This pioneering service led to the nationwide screening of babies. Elizabeth has worked tirelessly throughout her career to ensure that people with sickle cell disease and thalassemia get all the support they need and deserve.
Dr. Alexa Irene Canady made history when she became the first African-American woman neurosurgeon in the United States in 1981. She studied zoology at the University of Michigan, graduated with her degree in 1971, then attended a summer program in genetics for minority students, which sparked her passion for medicine.
Dorothy Lavinia Brown was the first African American female surgeon. She practiced in the Southeastern U.S. during the 1900s.
Dame Elizabeth Anionwu photo: ObliquePanic (CC BY 2.0)
Rebecca Lee Crumpler was the first African American woman to become a physician. She graduated from the New England Female Medical College as a Doctor of Medicine in 1864.
Mary Jackson was NASA’s first African American female engineer. She became an aeronautical engineer in 1958. She devoted her career as an engineer to creating reports and helping other women get STEM positions at NASA.
Dr. Ellen Ochoa was the first Latina astronaut to explore outer space. She earned her PhD in electrical engineering and began the three-year process of becoming a NASA astronaut. Her first trip to space took place on the Discovery in 1993, and she has since been to outer space three more times. She has conducted research regarding the ozone layer and is also an inventor.
Dr. Antonia Novello was the first woman and first Latina to hold the position of surgeon general of the U.S. Dr. Novello earned her Doctor of Medicine at the University of Puerto Rico before serving as surgeon general from 1990 to 1993. Afterward, she was the commissioner of health for New York state and worked as the medical authority for several important organizations.
In 2015 Tu Youyou became the first woman from the People’s Republic of China to receive the Nobel Prize. She and two other scientists shared the Nobel in physiology or medicine for their groundbreaking work discovering artemisinin and dihydroartemisinin, the drugs that treat malaria. She currently works as a pharmaceutical chemist.
Tu Youyou photo: Bengt Nyman (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Dr. Shirley Jackson was the second African American woman to graduate with a PhD in physics in the U.S., and the first African American woman to graduate with a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She received the National Medal of Science in 2015 during the presidency of Barack Obama.
Katherine Johnson completed the NASA calculations necessary for several space missions, including the 1969 moon landing. She began working as a human computer for Langley Research Center in 1952 and made her way to the flight research division due to her astounding intelligence and calculations. In 2015, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Dr. Gladys West was responsible for the mathematics that brought about the invention of the Global Positioning System (GPS). Her important work at the U.S. Naval Weapons Laboratory helped with outer space discoveries related to planets in the solar system as well as Earth. She programmed the mathematics and calculations for the complex computer that eventually became known as a GPS.