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Marie Maynard Daly

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Throughout Gender and Race in the Physical Sciences, I have been struck by how rarely in STEM we shed a light on the women of color that already exist and thrive in the sciences. Often, when we discuss diversity in the sciences, we only discuss it in the frame of a problem. More specifically, we tend to focus on the problem of there not being enough of these women in the field. As a result of the lack of attention paid to pioneering women in STEM, many young people of all backgrounds are inclined to believe that there are no women of color doing great things in the field- that there are no role models. With this paper, and an on-campus event to be held in the spring, I hope to challenge people’s assumptions about what a scientist looks like, and inspire people through a discussion of innovative women of color.
Marie Maynard Daly
Marie Maynard Daly was an African-American biochemist, and the first woman of her race to receive her doctorate in chemistry in the United States (“Marie Maynard Daly”). Marie's father enrolled at Cornell University to study chemistry in his youth, but was unable to due to financial constraints, and was a postal clerk throughout her youth (“Marie M. Daly”). Inspired by her father to accomplish her own academic goals, she attained her doctorate in only three years at Columbia University, an impressive feat, …show more content…

Wu took that education and went about as far with it as is humanly possible. Her passion for physics eventually took her away from her home and brought her to the United States, but she never lost her love and pride for her Chinese culture, and almost always wore her qipao under her lab coat, which she often made by hand (“Channeling Ada

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