The Archive

Scientists I’ve Met

Every scientist I meet has something to teach, and most of it never makes it into a textbook. So I’m collecting it here: who they are, how they got there, and the advice they’d give a student starting out. New conversations get added as I have them!

My chemistry professor and mentor

Dr. Jade Fostvedt

Teaching Assistant Professor of Chemistry, UNC Chapel Hill

Dr. Fostvedt earned her PhD in synthetic chemistry at UC Berkeley, where she designed reactive organometallic complexes of niobium and tantalum to transform molecules like H₂, N₂, and CO. Now she teaches chemistry in a way that tells students they already are scientists, and she's the one who solidified my love of chemistry. Our conversation is all about one question: what will you bring forward?

Her UNC profile →

Synthetic inorganic chemistry

Dr. John Arnold

Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, UC Berkeley

Dr. Arnold taught at Berkeley for about 35 years and served as the College of Chemistry's Undergraduate Dean from 2017 to 2024. He's a synthetic inorganic chemist whose group made and studied compounds across the d-, p-, and f-block, especially ones that can activate small molecules like H₂, N₂, and CO₂. His colleagues describe him as a champion for students from every background, and after talking with him, I get it!

His Berkeley profile →

More conversations are on the way!

Know a scientist students should hear from? Or want to be one of them?

Tell me about them →

Who came before us

The people whose work made room

To date, no Black chemist has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. That’s part of why I want to remember the ones who did the work anyway.

St. Elmo Brady: first African American PhD in chemistry

The first Black American to earn a chemistry doctorate, and the departments he helped build.

Dr. Marie M. Daly: chemistry pioneer

The first Black woman to earn a chemistry PhD in the US, whose work reshaped heart science.

"I Have a Dream," Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The full March on Washington speech, tying the dream to the ongoing fight for equity in science.

Black founders and inventors

They didn’t wait for a seat at the table. They built the table.

Entrepreneur

Madam C. J. Walker

Started her own hair care business in 1905 and built the Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company, one of the most successful Black-owned businesses of the early 1900s.

Chemist and founder

Dr. Percy Julian

Figured out how to make physostigmine, a glaucoma medicine, in the lab in 1935. In 1953 he started Julian Laboratories to make cortisone and other hormones from soybeans.

Astronaut and founder

Dr. Mae Jemison

In 1992 she became the first Black woman to fly in space. In 1993 she founded The Jemison Group, a technology consulting firm.

Eye doctor and co-founder

Dr. Patricia Bath

Co-founded the American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness in 1976, and in 1988 became the first Black woman doctor to receive a medical patent, for a cataract device.

Educator and founder

Mary McLeod Bethune

In 1904 she opened a school for Black girls in Daytona with $1.50 and five students. It grew into Bethune-Cookman University. In 1935 she also founded the National Council of Negro Women.

Engineer and founder

Lonnie Johnson

A NASA engineer who came up with the Super Soaker while working on a heat pump. He founded Johnson Research and Development and holds patents for over 100 inventions.

Inventor and businessman

Garrett Morgan

Patented a safety hood in 1914 and used it in a 1916 rescue after an explosion in a Cleveland waterworks tunnel. In 1923 he patented an early three-position traffic signal.