03/19/2024
Happy Women's History Month! To celebrate, we're sharing the accomplishments of scientists like Marie Maynard Daly, the first Black American woman to earn a chemistry PhD in the U.S.
Daly was born in Queens, New York in 1921, Daly enjoyed chemistry from an early age. After attending an all-girls high school, Daly earned a bachelors in chemistry from Queens College in 1942. She went to Columbia for her PhD, where she studied under Mary Letitia Caldwell, the lone woman faculty in the chemistry department. In 1947, Daly earned her PhD, making her the first Black American woman to earn a PhD in chemistry in the United States' 171-year history. She briefly taught at Howard University before pursuing postdoctoral research under Alfred Mirsky, a renowned geneticist, at Rockefeller University. In the years since, she went to Columbia and then the Albert Einstein College of Medicine where she conducted groundbreaking research on diet, cholesterol, smoking, lung health, and heart health (among other topics).
You can read more about Daly's work at https://www.acs.org/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/daly.html