ST. ANN & THE HOLY TRINITY CELEBRATES FEATURING THE UNSUNG WOMEN OF S.T.E.M.* *SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING & MATHEMATICS IN FEBRUARY 1980, PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER ISSUED THE FIRST PRESIDENTIAL PROCLAMATION DECLARING THE WEEK OF MARCH 8TH 1980 AS NATIONAL WOMEN’S HISTORY WEEK TABLE OF CONTENTS ● CAMILLE WARDROP ALLEYNE, AEROSPACE ENGINEER ● JUNE DALZIEL ALMEIDA, VIROLOGIST ● DR. PATRICIA BATH, OPTHAMOLOGIST & INVENTOR ● ROXCY BOLTON, FEMINIST CRUSADER ● LINDA BROWN BUCK, BIOLOGIST ● ROSALIND FRANKLIN, CHEMIST & CRYSTALLOGRAPHER ● DIANE HARTLEY, CIVIL ENGINEER ● THE "HIDDEN FIGURES" ENGINEERS AND MATHEMATICIANS OF NASA ● DR. SWATI MOHAN, AEROSPACE ENGINEER ● POPPY NORTHCUTT, APOLLO MISSION CONTROL ENGINEER ● MARTHA ROUNTREE, PIONEER BROADCAST JOURNALIST ● MAGGIE LENA WALKER, AFRICAN AMERICAN BANKING PIONEER ● ROGER ARLINER YOUNG, ZOOLOGIST ● “UNSUNG GROUPS” ● “UNSUNG INVENTORS” “When we empower and inspire girls to believe in themselves and dream big dreams, they will be the catalyst for positive and lasting change in their environment, country and“ You world.” might have thought I was a strange kid for the things I did. I buried my hamster after it died, then dug it up a while later to see what it looked like. I CAMILLE WARDROP ALLEYNE, AEROSPACEwas always curious.” ENGINEER -Linda Buck, 2004 Submitted by Winifred Murtaugh aerospace option. She pursued and earned a Dr. Camille Wardrop Alleyne was born on October Master of Science degree from Florida A&M in 12, 1966, in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad-Tobago, and mechanical engineering with a specialization in came to the United States in 1985. She is a United composite materials. Alleyne worked at the States aerospace engineer, space scientist, Kennedy Space Center as a flight systems engineer internally acclaimed speaker, educational leader, for two years before attending the University of and science ambassador. She is the only woman of Maryland to pursue a second Master of Science Caribbean descent in a top position at NASA, one of degree in aerospace engineering with a the most recognized women in the field of specialization in hypersonic aerodynamics and aerospace engineering and one of the few women propulsion. After graduating, she was recruited of color to serve in a senior technical management to work at the Naval Sea Systems Command on position at NASA. Alleyne is the Associate Program ship missile systems. She was then offered a Scientist for the International Space Station at position at the Missile Defense Agency under NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. the U.S. Department of Defense to work on Alleyne studied at Howard University in several ballistic missile defense projects as an Washington, D.C., where she earned a Bachelor of aerospace systems engineer, where she worked Science degree in mechanical engineering with an for eight years. Alleyne applied to NASA’s Astronaut Program in ISS Partners. During her tenure, she pursued and 2003, was one of the hundred finalists and earned her Doctorate in Educational Leadership interviewed, but did not make the final 12 from the University of Houston. She is also astronaut candidates list. She worked on the renowned for her work on global STEM education Constellation and Orion programs as a lead system for girls, which she does through “The Brightest engineer and crew module systems engineer and Stars,” a non-governmental organization founded test manager respectively. She currently serves as in 2007, dedicated to educating, empowering and an associate program scientist for the International inspiring young women to be future leaders Space Station (ISS), based at NASA’s Lyndon B. through the study of science, mathematics and Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Her roles technology. The organization provides mentorship include communicating with the ISS’s scientific globally, providing young women with the accomplishments with the general public, the necessary tools to select careers in science, leaders at NASA, the U.S. Congress and scientific technology, engineering, and mathematics fields. communities. Alleyne also plays a leading role in international education programs across the “Virus, virus shining bright, In the phosphotungstic night, What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fivefold symmetry.” “ You might have thought I was a strange kid for the things I did. I buried my hamster after it died, then dug it up a while later to see what it looked like. I JUNE DALZIEL ALMEIDA, VIROLOGISTwas always curious.” -Linda Buck, 2004 Submitted by Nancy Nicolette June Almeida (1930-2007) discovered the first surprised to get a job as an electron coronavirus in 1966 while working at St. microscope technician at the Ontario Cancer Thomas’ Hospital in London. The virus was an Institute in 1954, where she was able to infectious bronchitis, and due to her methods advance in her work without having a college with the electron microscope, she was able to degree. Her adaptation of the microscope by identify viruses that were difficult to see under using negative staining enabled her to detect standard microscopes. virus particles in organ samples that could not June was born in Glasgow, Scotland, to a be visualized previously. June returned to working-class family, leaving school at 16 since London in 1966, by which time she had earned her family could not afford to send her to her Doctor of Science degree. university. She took a job as an electron Shortly thereafter, a scientist by the name of microscope technician in Glasgow and later at David Tyrrell, who was studying the common St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. June met cold, identified a virus that could not be seen and married a Venezuelan artist, Enriques or photographed. It was called B814, and since Almeida, and moved to Canada. She was he had heard of June’s work with the electron H a r t l e y 3 A microscope, he sent her the sample. She was It is likely that June Almeida was an unsung confident that she would be able to reveal the heroine because she did not publish many structure of the virus. What she found was a papers in her own name since she collaborated virus with a spike-like appearance that with eminent scientists of the time. However, resembled a solar corona, which she named a in 1963, she started a journal. When she first “coronavirus.” Since the virus was a “common saw the coronavirus, she was moved to write cold,” no specific importance was given to the the following, with apologies to William Blake: discovery until 2002 with the emergence of SARS. Her other accomplishments included Virus virus shining bright. visualizing the rubella virus and later, the virus In the phosophotungstic night that causes Hepatitis B. What immortal hand or eye Dare frame their fivefold symmetry. Sources: Wikipedia; New York Times Overlooked No More. “Do not allow your mind to be imprisoned by majority thinking. Remember“ You might that have the thoughtlimits Iof was science a are notstrange the kid limits for the of things imagination.” I did. I buried my hamster after it died, then dug it up a while later to see what it looked like. I DR. PATRICIA BATH, OPTHAMOLOGISTwas always & curious.”INVENTOR -Linda Buck, 2004 Submitted by Jacqueline de Weever Patricia E. Bath (1942-2019) was the inventor of African slaves and Cherokee Native Americans. laser cataract surgery, a method called Lazerphaco Her mother bought her first chemistry set, and Probe. She became several “firsts”: the first female both parents gave her a motto: “Never settle for member of the Jules Stein Eye Institute, the first less than the best.” With her brother, she woman to lead a post-graduate training program in attended Charles Evans Hughes High School, ophthalmology, the first woman elected to the where they both exceled in math and science. honorary staff of the UCLA Medical Center, the first Bath won a National Science Foundation African American person to serve as Resident in Scholarship in 1959 at Yeshiva University in New Ophthalmology at New York University, and the first York, and discovered a mathematical equation to African American female doctor to receive a patent predict cancer cell growth. This discovery was for a medical purpose. She also founded a published in a scientific paper and shared at the nonprofit American Institute for the Prevention of International Fifth Congress of Nutrition in 1960. Blindness in Washington, D.C. In 1964, Bath graduated from Hunter College with Dr. Bath was born in Harlem, daughter of Rupert a degree in chemistry and went on the Howard and Gladys Bath. Rupert Bath was an immigrant University College of Medicine, graduating with from Trinidad, and Gladys was descended from honors in 1969. At Howard, she co-founded the Student National without charge, she was part of the team that first Medical Association, becoming its first female performed eye surgery there. While Bath served president. In the summer of 1968, influenced by Dr. her residency at New York University from 1970 to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Poor People’s Campaign, 1973, she married and had a daughter, Eraka. she organized medical students in providing Bath joined the UCLA Jules Stein Institute to volunteer health care services in Resurrection City become the first woman on the ophthalmology on the National Mall. faculty and established the Keratoprosthesis When Harlem Hospital Center affiliated with Program to provide advanced surgical treatment Columbia University College of Physicians and for blind patients. Also recruited by Charles R. Surgeons, Bath became an intern. There she Drew University, she co-founded an observed that Harlem Hospital had larger numbers ophthalmology residency program at Martin of blind patients with glaucoma than Columbia Luther King, Jr. Hospital. University Eye Clinic. A one-year fellowship led her In 1983, Bath was appointed Chair of the to collect data on blindness and visual impairment KING-DREW-UCLA Ophthalmology Residency at Harlem Hospital.