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"Forgotten Genius" PBS NOVA special on Percy Julian Percy Julian was a pioneering chemist and a member of the National Academy of Science -- the first African American chemist to receive that honor. NOVA produced a documentary on his life and work, which was aired on PBS and is available on DVD. View the following links for further information:
Just-Garcia-Hill An organization that encourages minorities to pursue careers in science 
Check out the resources on the ACS website at
ACS Committee on Minority Affairs Also, you can read their Spring 2008 Newsletter. Harvard's Free Tuition Announcement Harvard is offering free tuition for students that have a family income below $40,000. If you are a member of Blacks In Government, a mentor of young adults or have children, nieces, nephews or know anyone who qualify for Harvard's minimum entry level requirements please give them this information. Harvard's tuition announcement 'Highlights Failure of Prestigious Universities to Enroll Low-Income Students' began on March 1, 2004. Excerpt From the Harvard University Web-page: In making the announcement, Harvard's president Lawrence H. Summers said, "When only 10 percent of the students in elite higher education come from families in the lower half of income distribution, then we are not doing enough in bringing elite higher education to the lower half of the income distribution." Simply put, from now on undergraduate students from low-income families can go to Harvard for free...no tuition and no student loans! To find out more about Harvard offering free tuition for families making less than $40,000 a year visit Harvard's financial aid web site or call the school's financial aid office at (617) 495- 1581. EEO Office, Richmond, VA. Thank you for thinking BIG and making a BIG difference......... "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." Freddie and Ada Brown Encouragement Award for Future Careers in Chemistry Freddie and Ada Brown were the parents of Jeannette Brown, a pioneer African American woman chemist. Although they never studied chemistry they encouraged their daughter to pursue a career as an industrial medicinal chemist at a time when there were few African Americans in the field. Ms Brown has discovered in her search of the history of African American (Women) Chemists that each one of them had a mentor or teacher to help them to succeed. This award is dedicated to the parents and mentors of current African American and Native American chemical practitioners with the hope that the recipients follow in their footsteps. Many factors affect the first conscious steps of young people about to assume grown-up responsibilities: the state of there. Intellectual development, innate ability and inclination, socio- economic conditions, traditions of their environment, conception of reality, all requiring mature decisions from, by definition, immature individuals. Yet, these decisions will determine the extent of realization of their full potential, direct their lives, and define their role in society. In such instances, concerned and illuminated recognition is invaluable in overcoming uncertainty and hesitation, igniting ambition and the desire to succeed. Attention and sympathy are crucial. The objective of this Award is to identify and encourage high achieving middle- and high-school students, of African American and Native American heritage, to further develop their budding academic skills, with views on careers in chemistry. The award will consist of a monetary prize and a mentor to follow the career of the recipient. We expect to present 4 awards per year. This award will be inaugurated during the academic year of 2008-09 with the first presentation to be given in the spring of 2009. If you would like to contribute to the matching grant for this award which is tax deductible just as is any ACS award, please send a check payable to North Jersey ACS Freddie and Ada Brown Award, mail to North Jersey ACS Section Office If you would like to mentor a student or have questions: Jeannette E. Brown, or call 908-239-1515.
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Chemist Becomes Historian 
Jeannette Brown, a retired organic medicinal chemist, was one of the many authors of the short biographies that have been selected for publication in the new series of books African American National Biography, recently published by Oxford University Press. African American National Biography is a joint project of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University and Oxford University Press. It covers a broad range of African American lives than ever before depicted. It documents the lives of 4,100 individuals both the famous and ordinary people[1]. It is edited by Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham of Harvard University. (More information can be found here: ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, and ref 4.) The eight volume set of books published in February 2008 contains biographies of only nineteen chemists and chemical engineers, twelve female and seven male. Ms Brown contributed the biographies of six women chemists and chemical engineers, including Dr. Marie Daly, the first African American woman to receive a PhD in chemistry and Jennie Patrick, the first African American woman to receive a PhD in chemical engineering. Dr. Daly was Ms Brown's inspiration for becoming a historian of African American women chemists. Ms Brown met Dr. Daly at a local American Chemical Society meeting and realized that she was talking to a person whose story needed to be told. Dr. Daly was on the research team of Alfrey and Mirsky at Rockefeller Institute (now University) and worked on discovering the amino acid precursors to the discovery of DNA. The work of this research team was mentioned by Dr. James Watson in his Nobel Prize lecture. Dr. Jennie Patrick had to overcome racial prejudice in order to prove to the world that she deserved to become the first African American woman to receive a PhD in chemical engineering. During her career in corporate America she was the first to design a pilot plant for supercritical fuel extraction and became a research manger of the first fundamental research engineering group of another corporation. The editors of African American National Biography (AANB) indexed all scientists and engineers under the heading of technology. Ms Brown extracted the list of chemists and chemical engineers from this list and created an index for use by other chemists (see below). Ms Brown is one of the chemists whose biographies appear in AANB. Ms Brown's contribution to AANB is her first publication her project of documenting the history of African American women chemists. She has given numerous lectures and talks about her research and she is in the process of writing a book about these remarkable women. Her book will become a reference book which will put the lives of these women in one volume for use by students of the history of science, African American history and womens history. Ms Brown has also taken on a new task by becoming the historian of the American Chemical Society's Women Chemist Committee. 
Chemists & Chemical Engineers featured in
[1] http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~aanb selected items. New! Groupsite for NJ ACS Minority Affairs A Groupsite for North Jersey American Chemical Society Minority Affairs Group has been set up. The Groupsite is powered by CollectiveX and combine the best features of forums, calendars, email lists, and social networks. This site is a meeting place that provides members of North Jersey American Chemical Society Minority Affairs Group with a shared calendar, discussion forums, photo gallery, files and member profiles. What can the Minority affairs group do?
To sign up go to: http://NJACSMinorityAffairs.collectivex.com |
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