A native of Montgomery, Alabama and grandson of slaves, Percy Lavon Julian, born April 11, 1899, was a trailblazer in the chemical sciences. His parents Elizabeth Lena Adams, a school teacher, and James Sumner Julian, a railroad mail clerk who loved mathematics, raised six children, … Read MorePercy Lavon Julian (1899-1975)
William Montague Cobb was born in Washington, D.C. October 12, 1904. He earned his B.A. from Amherst College in 1925 and continued his research in embryology at Woods Hole Marine Biology Laboratory in Massachusetts. Cobb then went to Howard University, and earned his medical degree … Read MoreW. Montague Cobb (1904-1990)
In 1974, when organic chemist Phillip O. Crews browsed through a book on marine biology that stated the chemistry of sponges was unknown he refocused the direction of his research and his career to solving this mystery. He was born in the university town of … Read MorePhillip O. Crews (1943- )
A native of Guayama, Puerto Rico, Pedro Barbosa III is a distinguished entomologist (a scientist who studies insects) who has taught at the University of Maryland since 1979. Born on September 6, 1944, he acquired his bachelor’s degree at the City College of New York … Read MorePedro Barbosa, III (1966- )
Samuel George Harker Philander is Knox Taylor Professor of Geosciences at Princeton University. Born in Caledon, Republic of South Africa on June 25, 1942, he received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Cape Town in 1962 and his Ph.D. in mathematics from Harvard University … Read MoreS. George Philander (1942- )
While a professor of biology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, Robert Kent Trench earned the reputation as the world’s leading expert on corals and their symbiotic algae, more specifically strains of zooxanthellae adaptation to certain coral species. Born on August 3, 1940 … Read MoreRobert K. Trench (1940- )
The career of Robert Henry Bragg was highlighted by his success in employing x-ray techniques to reveal the structural makeup and electrical properties of carbon and composite materials. The son of a union organizer and a seamstress, he was born in Jacksonville, Florida on August … Read MoreRobert H. Bragg (1919-2017)
The eighth child of a cotton farmer, O’Neil Ray Collins, born March 9, 1931 in Opelousas, Louisiana, rose to become one of the most distinguished African American botanists, a world renowned expert on slime-mold genetics. Upon completing his bachelor’s degree in botany at Southern University … Read MoreO’Neil R. Collins (1931-1989)
Microbiologist James Monroe Jay was born in Fitzgerald, Georgia on September 12, 1927. Following service in the U.S. Army during World War II he earned his bachelor’s degree at Paine College (cum laude), then his master’s in 1953 and Ph.D. in bacteriology and biochemistry at … Read MoreJames M. Jay (1927-2008)
