Agriculture and food scientist and nutritionist who served in the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) as Chief Scientist and Under Secretary for Research, Education, and Economics during the Obama-Biden administration, where she oversaw USDA’S Agricultural Research Service, Economic Research Service, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and the National Agricultural Statistics Service.
Frances Arnold, PhD, is a biochemical engineer who pioneered how to harness evolution to create proteins, for which she received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2018), becoming the first American woman to do so.
In 1971, Dr. Audrey Evans developed the Evans Staging System for neuroblastoma and initiated the ‘Advances in Neuroblastoma Research’ conference.
Barbara Ross-Lee, D.O., became the first African American woman to be appointed dean of an American medical school in 1993.
In 1991, Dr. Bernadine Healy became the first woman to direct the National Institutes of Health.
Dr. Van Hoosen was a founder of the American Medical Women’s Association and served as the organization’s first president.
Debi Thomas, M.D., grew up wanting to be a champion figure skater and a doctor, and she has succeeded as both. In 1988, she won the bronze Olympic medal and in 1997 she graduated from Northwestern University Medical School.
Paleontologist with the US National Park Service
Pediatrician and the first African American woman medical director of a major hospital.
The first African American woman in the United States to become a neurosurgeon.