• Born in 1942.
• Masters from the University of Ghana, Legon and PhD from the University of Cambridge.
• Former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana.
• Awarded honorary doctorate degrees from the University of Ghana, New York University, and Soka University (Japan).
• Works with World Health Organization (WHO); was a member of the Expert Advisory Committee of the malaria drug development initiation.
• Developed inexpensive methodology (semi-quantitative thin layer chromatography) to detect counterfeit malaria drugs using intermolecular forces.

Try this: One common antimalarial drug is mefloquine (pictured to the right). Label all areas of mefloquine that may contribute to intermolecular forces (H-bonding or polarity).

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• Born in Shanghai, China.
• Continued her education with other children in the educated youth program during the Chinese Cultural Revolution.
• Earned Bachelors from East China Normal University, Masters from Ball State University, and PhD from Georgia Tech.
• Published over 350 articles.
• Received the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal in 2005.
• Studies the area of aerosol/cloud chemistry, where the liquid water in the clouds manipulate the orientation of the gas molecules based on hydrophilicity of the gas and hydrogen bonding interactions. This orientation hinders or encourages different reactions.

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• Born in 1947 in Bombay (now Mumbai), India.
• BS from the University of Bombay, Masters from California Institute of Technology, PhD in Material Science from MIT.
• Developed ceramics (traditionally insulators) that can conduct electricity with zero resistance at low temperatures, called superconductors.
• These ceramic superconductors are now used in sustainable batteries, biofuel, and electronic packaging.
• Worked at Dupont, a leading scientific research and manufacturing company, filling roles related to the chemistry, management, and business side of the company over her 33 years, becoming Dupont’s chief science and technology officer.

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• Born in 1867 in Warsaw, Poland.
• Paid her sister’s way through medical school by working as a governess for 5 years, then was helped by her sister while attending school herself.
• Originally studied at the underground Flying University in Poland, earned two degrees from the University of Paris.
• Shared the 1903 Nobel Prize with her husband for the discovery of the element radium in uranium ore after being originally overlooked by the awarding committee.
• After her husband’s death, she became the first scientist to isolate pure radium metal in 1910, for which she won her second Nobel Prize in 1911.
• Her two Nobel Prizes made her the first woman to win and the first person and only woman to win twice.
• Founded the Curie Institutes in Paris and Warsaw as a state of the heart research facility focusing on radioactivity and cancer.
• Developed portable x-ray machines for use in the field during World War I.

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• Born in 1951 in Habana, Cuba.
• Graduated with a BS and PhD in Chemistry from the University of Puerto Rico in 6 years total.
• Director of the Chemistry Division at the National Science Foundation from 2006 to 2010.
• President of ACS in 2020.
• Teaches chemistry at the University of Texas El Paso and Clemson University and previously taught at the University of Puerto Rico, University of Maryland, and University of Miami.
• Published 385 articles and 47 book chapters.
• Develops new forms of pure carbon molecules (allotropes), C>₆₀, such as carbon nanotubes and "carbon maracas."

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• Born in Montebello, California into a Mexican American family.
• PhD at UCLA and postdoc at Harvard University.
• Teaches chemistry at California State University, Los Angeles where he is also the university Faculty Research Liaison.
• Published over 130 articles and two books.
• Mentored over 142 high school, undergrad, masters, and postdoctoral students.
• Studies biological molecules and how they react when shocked with electronic voltage in a small glass capillary.
• Researches in the field of point-of-care (POC) diagnostic devices, which allow medical professionals to quickly run tests and get results without sending specimens to a lab.

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• Born in 1927 in Greenville, South Carolina.
• Masters from Howard University.
• First black scientist to work at the Food and Drug Administration.
• Debunked a "miracle cure" for cancer by using infrared spectroscopy to show that the drug was simply creatine (a common amino acid found in meats).
• Research focused on using spectroscopy to identify precursors to steroids.
• Died of cancer at the age of 40 in 1967.

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• Born in 1915 in St. Joseph, Missouri.
• PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
• Appointed to the National Commission on Product Safety in 1968 by President Lyndon B. Johnson.
• Served on the national council and board of directors for the American Chemical Society and later became the first African American president of ACS in 1976.
• Developed "blowing agents" which produce the tiny bubbles of gas that expand plastics (e.g. foam like in a yoga mat).
• Patented a synthesis of azodicarbonamide which was cheaper to make than the traditional synthesis and required a lower decomposition temperature.
• At 200°C, azodicarbonamide (C2H4N4O2) in water decomposes into gases (such as nitrogen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and ammonia) which act as blowing agents: C₂H₄N₄O₂ + H₂O → N₂(g) + 2NH₃(g) + CO(g) + CO₂(g).

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• Born in 1907 in South Mills, North Carolina.
• Masters in chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania.
• Taught chemistry at Virginia State College Laboratory School, Hampton Institute, Bennett College, Tennessee A & I College (now Tennessee State University), and Kentucky State College where she established chapters of the American Chemical Society.
• Developed a method of monitoring reaction progress through examination of solubility of reaction products.
• Won awards for teaching chemistry in both high schools and colleges, designated as one of the top six chemistry educators in the US and Canada by the Manufacturing Chemists Association.

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• Born in 1899 in Montgomery, Alabama into a working black family.
• Masters from Harvard University and PhD from the University of Vienna.
• Taught chemistry at Fisk University, West Virginia State College, Howard University, and DePauw University.
• Synthesized medicinal hormones from soybean oil used to prevent miscarriages and treat breast cancer and arthritis.
• Published in more than 50 scholarly journals and held 94 patents for producing proteins, sterols, and steroids.
• As a young professor, he famously won a dispute with an established Oxford University chemist over the synthesis of the molecule eserethole.

Try this: For the eserethole molecule to the right: label carbons (gray atoms) with hybridizations & count sigma and pi bonds.

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• Born in 1936 in present-day Hsinchu, Taiwan.
• Masters at National Tsing Hua University and PhD at UC Berkeley.
• Taught at the University of Chicago and UC Berkeley.
• Using high-energy molecular beams, characterized in great detail reactions between unusual species such as ionic radicals.
• Won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry and the National Medal of Science in 1986.
• Served as President of Academia Sinica, the most prominent research institution in Taiwan from 1994-2006 and as President of the International Council for Science from 2011-2014.

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• Born in 1919 in Little Rock, Arkansas.
• PhD from Iowa State University.
• Was denied on-campus residence and access to the same labs as the white students while studying for his PhD.
• Awarded an honorary doctorate later in his career from the University of Arkansas, the same university that had denied his undergrad application due to his race.
• Developed liquid uranium compounds for the enrichment of 235U in uranium samples for use in atomic bombs during World War II.
• Worked on the Manhattan Project, which created the first atomic bomb, from 1943 - 1945, developing scars on his back from radiation exposure.
• Served as the first African American professor at the United States Naval Academy from 1966 - 1993, later becoming the first African American honorary member of the National Naval Officers Association.

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• Born in 1879, Port Lambton, Canada.
• PhD in biochemistry, University of Chicago.
• Retired as Professor of pathology at the University of Pittsburgh in 1949.
• Worked on the development of enzyme kinetics, including the Michaelis-Menten equation in 1913.
• Proposed a general theory of enzyme action based on these kinetic observations (Kotz p642).

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• Born in San Pedro, California into a Mexican American family.
• PhD from Purdue University.
• Helped develop plastics that can withstand high temperatures such as those used in jet engines and power plants.
• These more durable and sustainable plastics have a large impact on energy consumption around the world.

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• PhD from Graz University of Technology in Austria.
• Professor at the University of Ghana Legon.
• Studies the groundwater in rural Ghana, analyzing sources of contaminants and health impacts of the water on local communities.

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• Born in 1954 in Eufaula, Oklahoma into a Creek Nation community.
• PhD from the University of Texas.
• Professor at the University of Oklahoma.
• Served as President of the American Chemical Society in 2016.
• Worked with the creators of "Breaking Bad" as a science advisor to improve the representation of science and scientists to the public and even co-wrote a book titled "The Science of Breaking Bad."
• Added ionic functional groups to carbon-nanotubes (pictured below) to connect tubes to each other ionically and increase stability at high temperatures.
• Resulting nanotechnology can be used for high temperature conductive coatings.

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• Born in 1904 in Busan, Korea to a Norwegian father and Japanese mother; moved to Japan for preparatory school.
• Masters in Organic Chemistry from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
• Published 25 papers and received 65 patents.
• Early work used "deactivators" to reduce metal ions that would otherwise catalyze unwanted oxidation of petroleum products.
• While working to deactivate vanadium ions, stumbled upon the synthesis of the first crown ethers.
• Won the Nobel Prize in 1987 for this work, making him one of the few winners without a PhD and one of two Korean-born winners.

Try this: What is the oxidation number of carbon before and after the unwanted oxidation of methane to methanol?

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• Born in 1888 in Trichinopoly, Madras (now known as Trichy, Tamil Nadu), India.
• BA and Masters from Presidency College (now part of the University of Madras).
• Published his first paper on the diffraction of light in 1906 at the age of 18, with no other contributors listed.
• Worked in the governmental finance department for 10 years after receiving his masters, while still conducting experiments at the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, writing 30 articles during this time.
• Joined Calcutta University as the first Palit Professor of Physics in 1917.
• Discovered, with his assistant K.S. Krishnan, that some light changes wavelength and amplitude after passing through a transparent material, known as the Raman effect.
• Won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930 for this work, making him the first nonwhite, Indian, or Asian person to win in a science field.
• Also known for describing why the sea is blue based on diffraction.

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• Born in 1806 in New Orleans to a white father and a free black mother.
• Educated at École Centrale Paris.
• Invented a replacement for "open kettle" sugar refining which employed condensing coils that used the vapor from one vacuum chamber to evaporate the juice from a second chamber.
• Approval for a patent was initially denied (1857) on the erroneous assumption that Rillieux was a slave and therefore not a U.S. citizen.
• Returned to France, teaching at École Centrale Paris, before the Civil War, in part to escape restrictions imposed on free people of color in New Orleans.

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• Born in 1964 in Lagos, Nigeria.
• Masters from University of Lagos (Nigeria), PhD from the University of Wollongong (Australia).
• Teaches at the State University of New York at Binghamton.
• Co-founder and former President of Sustainable Nanotechnology Organization.
• Won Nigerian National Order of Merit Award for Science in 2016.
• Developed biosensors which detect the presence of toxic spores, even at very small concentrations.

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• Masters from Beijing Institute of Chemical Technology (presently known as Beijing University of Chemical Technology) and Ph.D. from the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden.
• Dean of the School of Materials at Beijing University of Chemical Technology from 2005-2016, where he is still a professor.
• Elected to the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2017.
• Published more than 290 papers and 15 patents.
• Used UV light to excite molecules and create free radicals in single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs).
• This simple modification allows the SWCNTs to better disperse in organic solvents while also unbundling.

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• Born in 1930 in Ningbo, China.
• Contracted tuberculosis at 16, which motivated her to go into the medical field.
• Graduated from Beijing Medical University School of Pharmacy.
• Found an ancient Chinese herbal remedy – "take one bunch of Qinghao (wormwood), soak in two sheng (~0.4 liters) of water, wring it out to obtain the juice and ingest it in its entirety" – and perfected the extraction process to produce pure artemisinin crystals at a high yield.
• Pure artemisinin is a very cheap anti-malarial drug that has saved millions of lives.
• Took the new extracts herself for the safety evaluation in order to begin the clinical trial during peak malaria season, rather than waiting another year.
• Won the Nobel Prize in 2015 for this work, making her the first Chinese woman to do so.

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• Born in Damanhur, Egypt.
• Masters from Alexandria University, PhD from the University of Pennsylvania.
• Won Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his characterization of transition states using femtosecond spectroscopy.
• Egyptian-American Chemist; developed "the world's smallest camera."
• Used lasers in order to capture quick reactions so that those reactions could be studied.

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