Annie Easley (1933 – 2011) worked for 34 years as a mathematician, computer programmer, and rocket scientist for the National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA), pioneering research that made modern spaceflight possible. If there was anything harder than rocket science however, it was overcoming the discrimination that Annie faced as an African-American woman of her time. As a young girl, Annie’s mother taught her, “you can be anything you want to be, but you have to work at it.” Taking this advice to heart, Annie graduated high school as valedictorian at the top of her class, and was admitted into…

A distinguished scholar and chemist, Alice Augusta Ball (1892 – 1916) accomplished more in her 24 short years than most do in a lifetime. Unfortunately, her revolutionary contributions to medicine went largely unrecognized for nearly 85 years. Alice graduated from high school at the top of her class in 1910, and by 1914 obtained two bachelor’s degrees from the University of Washington in pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences. With a full scholarship at the University of Hawaii, she completed her master’s degree in chemistry, becoming the first woman and first African-American master’s graduate at the university in 1915. She then became…