Nine Brilliant Black STEM Trailblazers

Marie Van Brittan Brown (1922–1999)

In 1966, 40-year-old Marie Van Brittan Brown lived with her husband Albert and their two children, Norma and Albert Jr., in Queens, New York. Marie was a nurse while Albert was an electrician, and their work hours rarely aligned, which often meant that Marie and the kids were home alone in an area with one of the highest crime rates in New York. So, with a little help from Albert, Marie invented the first home security system! The prototype consisted of four peepholes, a sliding camera that could switch between holes, microphones for two-way communication, and multiple TV monitors set up inside the house, and it was nothing short of revolutionary. She was granted a patent for her design in 1969, and today the DNA of that design can be seen in every major security system used today. In fact, 32 patents on record today directly cite her work.

Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806)

Although our knowledge about him is fairly limited, it’s clear that Benjamin Banneker was a true marvel of his time. Born to a free African American mother and a formally enslaved father, Banneker had next to no formal education. But he had a photographic memory that he used to develop a vast knowledge of botany, mathematics, and astronomy — much of which he put to use as a land-owning farmer and surveyor. His talents eventually captured the attention of President George Washington, who personally appointed him to the six-man team that designed the blueprints for Washington, D.C. In 1792, after overcoming a litany of considerable race-based difficulties, he published the first of a six-year series of almanacs and ephemerides containing various astronomical calculations for eclipses and planetary conjunctions to significant commercial and critical acclaim. He is also known for his outspoken support of the abolition movement, which culminated in a personal correspondence with Thomas Jefferson. Although most of his possessions, including all but one journal, were destroyed in a fire after his funeral, his story and contributions continue to live on in the annals of American history.

George Washington Carver (1864–1943)

George Washington Carver is best known for inventing peanut butter, but his contributions to STEM are staggering. Born with both a gift and a passion for agriculture, he developed over 300 industrial and commercial products out of peanuts, including Worcestershire sauce, cooking and salad oils, papers, cosmetics, wood stains, soaps, and milk. These inventions, while interesting in their own right, were primarily intended to demonstrate the vast potential of alternative crops like peanuts, sweet potatoes, and cowpeas, which could reduce soil depletion and improve the lives of destitute farmers. He also holds the distinction of being the first African American to receive a bachelor’s degree from Iowa State University — an especial feat given that his acceptance to Highland College in Kansas had previously been rescinded when they learned of his skin color — and in later years served as a professor at the famed Tuskegee Institute, making him one of the few African Americans to receive recognition for his brilliance outside of the Black community. In 1941, Time magazine dubbed him the “Black Leonardo” for his contributions to science.

Dr. Marie Maynard Daly (1921–2003)

In 1947, at Columbia University, Dr. Mary Maynard Daly accomplished something that few at the time believed they would ever see. She became the first African American woman to be awarded a PhD in chemistry. But that was just the beginning of her storied STEM journey. Over the next 40+ years, she made a stunning number of contributions to medicine, discovering the relationship between high cholesterol and heart disease and pioneering research about how cigarette smoking affects the lungs. Despite the time dedicated to her vigorous research, she never forgot her difficult journey and remained a staunch advocate for increasing the number of Black students in medical schools and graduate science programs until her death in 2003. To this day, Queens College annually awards a scholarship in her name to a deserving minority student interested in pursuing a STEM degree.

Alan Emtage (1964–)

Have you ever wondered what life might be like without a search engine? If it weren’t for Barbados-born engineer Alan Emtage, that might be our reality! When he was a graduate student at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, Emtage worked as a systems administrator in the university’s IT department. To save time tracking down software, he created Archie, a program capable of searching approximately 2.1 million files located across more than 1,200 web sites in minutes using file keywords. And while this might seem fairly basic today, all modern search engines, including Google and Bing, are built upon this foundation, and in 2017, he was inducted into the Internet Society’s Internet Hall of Fame.

Guion Bluford (1942–)

Guion Bluford is a former Air Force officer and fighter pilot and an aerospace engineer of the highest order, but he is best known for being the first African American to go into space. He participated in four separate space missions between 1983 and 1992, contributing to space station, Remote Manipulator System (RMS) oversight, payload safety, and flight software verification operations. Throughout his tenure, he also wrote a variety of scientific papers about computational fluid dynamics. After his storied astronaut career, he became the vice president and general manager of the New York Military Academy’s engineering division and, later, the vice president of Microgravity R&D and Operations for Northop Grumman Corporation. If you ever visit the International Space Hall of Fame, make sure to look for his name!

Dr. Nola Hylton (1957–)

Is there a breast cancer survivor in your family? Then the work of this STEM titan might interest you. After earning a degree in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a PhD from Stanford University, Dr. Nola Hylton launched an illustrious career in the field of radiology. Her research into the development of MRI technology has been integral to breast cancer detection and diagnosis and, later in her career, she worked with the medical technology company Hologic to develop imaging software capable of analyzing tumors in real time and calculating tumor volume. To date, she’s published over 80 research articles, 13 book chapters, and over 130 abstracts.

Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)

Few individuals in STEM can claim to harbor as many talents as this remarkable woman. Zora Neale Hurston was the daughter of a Baptist preacher and sharecropper. Her first job was working as a maid for the lead singer of the Gilbert & Sullivan theatre company, where she first developed an interest in writing short stories, novels, and plays. Over the course of her life, she wrote four novels — including “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” a seminal classic of the Harlem Renaissance — and over 50 short stories, plays, and essays. Her contributions, however, go far beyond the arts. After receiving a scholarship to attend Barnard College, she graduated with a B.A. in anthropology and dedicated her life to studying and promoting Black culture. Her research took her to Jamaica and Haiti, and in Black academic circles, she became well-known for her work documenting Black music, folklore, literature, and hoodoo. Between 1938 and 1939, she worked for the Federal Writer’s Project (FWP), part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), where she spent her time researching Floridian culture for its historical and cultural collection. Although she was largely forgotten and facing significant financial hardship by the time of her death in 1960, she’s remembered today as a true trailblazer who left a towering legacy in both the arts and sciences.

Garrett Morgan (1877–1963)

Garrett Morgan called himself “The Black Edison,” and while bold, his resume is well-deserving of that moniker. He spent most of his youth as a handyman, fixing sewing machines, but quickly grew tired of repairing other people’s inventions. So, he decided to do some inventing of his own. Shortly after opening a clothing store with his wife, he began generating a staggering number of inventions, including the three-way traffic light and hair straightener. But his greatest contribution to society is his smoke hood design, which was the precursor to the modern gas mask. In 1916, following an underground gas explosion that left dozens of workers trapped and suffocating on noxious fumes, he and his brother ran into the tunnels wearing smoke hoods, saving two workers and recovering four bodies while showing the public the merits of the device. However, due to the color of his skin, his heroism ended up hurting product sales. A respected African American community leader in Cleveland until his death, he was also known for co-founding the Cleveland Association of Colored Men and founding The Cleveland Call, a weekly African American newspaper.