Physiologist Albert G. Crenshaw was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on March 20, 1952. His father was a construction worker and his mother a domestic worker. Crenshaw did not take to science right away; rather, he attended Chowan Junior College on a basketball scholarship and received his A.A. degree from there in 1973. He then enrolled at West Virginia University...

Astrophysicist George Robert Carruthers was born on October 1, 1939 in Cincinnati, Ohio. His father was a civil engineer and his mother worked for the U.S. Postal Service. The family lived in Milford, Ohio until Carruthers’ father died suddenly and his mother moved the family back to her native Chicago. As a child, he enjoyed visiting Chicago museums, libraries,...

NASA astronaut, aerospace engineer, military officer, and senior engineering executive, Guion S. Bluford Jr. was born on November 22, 1942 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was the eldest of three sons of Guion Bluford, Sr., a mechanical engineer, and Lolita Bluford, a special education teacher. Bluford graduated from Overbrook Senior High School in 1960 and went on to graduate from...

Museum education administrator and health researcher Frederic Bertley was born in Montreal, Canada in 1970. His father, Leo Bertley, served as professor of history at Vanier College, as editor of the newspaperAfro-Can, and author of Anglophone Blacks in Quebec; his mother, June Bertley, was the founder and president of the Quebec Task Force on Immigrant Women. Bertley graduated from...

Neurobiologist and academic administrator Joanne Berger-Sweeney was born in 1958. After graduating from Wellesley College in 1979, she went on to receive her M.P.H. degree in environmental health sciences from the University of California, Berkeley in 1981 and her Ph.D. degree in neurotoxicology from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in 1989. Link: http://www.thehistorymakers.com/biography/joanne-berger-sweeney

Informal science educator and administrator DeAnna Banks Beane was born on January 25, 1940 in Washington, D.C. She became interested in science and nature as a child. Beane attended Howard University and received her B.S. degree in zoology in 1962. Initially she was interested in medical school, but during temporary science teaching assignment, she discovered the joy of introducing...

Astrophysicist and physics professor Gibor Basri was born on May 3, 1951 to Saul and Phyllis Basri in New York City, New York. His father was Jewish and a physics professor at Colorado State University while his mother, who was Jamaican, taught dance. Basri grew up in Fort Collins, Colorado with his younger brother, David, though the family also...

Physicist Oliver Keith Baker was born in McGehee, Arkansas to parents Oliver Walter and Yvonne Brigham Baker. After graduating with his B.S. degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981, Baker enrolled at Stanford University where he received his M.S. degrees in physics and mathematics in 1984 and his Ph.D. degree in physics in 1987. Baker...

Scientist and educator Diola Bagayoko was born on December 12, 1948, and earned his B.S. degree in chemistry and physics from the Ecole Normale Superieure (ENSup) in Mali, West Africa in 1973. Prior to that, he received formal training in the theory and practice of teaching and learning from ENSup. During his undergraduate education, Bagayoko also taught high school...

Aeronautical engineer and engineering executive Wanda Austin was born on September 8,1954 in New York City, New York. Growing up in a low-income Bronx neighborhood, Austin’s parents, a barber and a nurse, encouraged her interests, and Austin discovered a love for mathematics. Austin graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1971, and she received a scholarship to...