List of African-American inventors and scientists

This is an incomplete list, which may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by expanding it with reliably sourced entries.

Science and technology in the United States
African-American contributions
Discoveries
NASA spinoff
Native American contributions
Puerto Rican scientists and inventors
Technological and industrial history
Inventions by date
(before 1890)
(1890-1945)
(1946-1991)
(after 1991)

Note: this table is viewable as a timeline when clicking on the sort symbol next to 'Life'.

Name	Life	Occupation	Inventions/Accomplishments	Refs
Ammons, Virgie	19xx–	Inventor	Fireplace burner	[1][2]
Amos, Harold	1918–2003	Microbiologist	First African-American department chair at Harvard Medical School	[3]
Alcorn, George Edward, Jr.	1940–	Physicist Inventor	Invented a method of fabricating an imaging X-ray spectrometer	[4][5]
Bailey, L.C.	18xx–?	Inventor	Military folding bed invention.	[6]
Banneker, Benjamin	1731–1806	Mathematician Astronomer Surveyor Clockmaker Author Farmer	Wooden clock (1753). Assisted in survey of the original boundaries of the District of Columbia (1791). Authored almanac and ephemeris (1792–1797)	[7]
Banyaga, Augustin	1947-	Mathematician	Work on diffeomorphisms and symplectomorphisms
Bashen, Janet Emerson	1957–	Inventor Entrepreneur Professional Consultant	First African-American woman to receive a patent for a web-based software invention. The invention, LinkLine, is an Equal Employment Opportunity case management and tracking software.	[8]
Bauer, James A.	19xx–	Inventor	Coin changer mechanism	[9]
Bath, Patricia	1942–	Ophthalmologist	First African-American female physician to receive a patent for a medical invention. Inventions relate to cataract surgery and include the Laserphaco Probe, which revolutionized the industry in the 1980s, and an ultrasound technique for treatment.	[10][11][12]
Beard, Andrew	1849–1921	Farmer Carpenter Blacksmith Railroad worker Businessman Inventor	Jenny Coupler improvements Invented the automatic car coupling device patent #594,059 dated November 23, 1897 Rotary engine patent #478,271 dated July 5, 1892	[13]
Bell, Earl S.	1977–	Inventor Entrepreneur Architect Industrial Designer	Invented Chair With Sliding Skin (2004), and the Quantitative Display Apparatus (2005)	[14] [15] [16]
Benjamin, Miriam	18xx–?	Inventor Educator	Invented "Gong and Signal Chair for Hotels". Second African-American woman to receive a patent.	[17]
Berry, Leonidas	1902–1995	Gastroenterologist	Gastroscope pioneer	[18]
Black, Keith	1957–	Neurosurgeon	Brain tumor surgery and research	[19][20]
Blackwell, David	1919–2010	Mathematician Statistician	First proposed the Blackwell channel model used in coding theory and information theory; one of the eponyms of the Rao-Blackwell theorem, which is a process that significantly improves crude statistical estimators.	[21]
Blair, Henry	1807–1860	Inventor	Second black inventor to issue a patent Invented early spark plug	[22] [23]
Griffin, Bessie Blount	1914–2009	Physical therapist Inventor	Amputee self-feeding device	[24][25]
Boone, Sarah	18xx–	Inventor	Ironing board allowing sleeves of women's garments to be ironed more easily
Bowman, James	1923–	Physician	Pathologist and geneticist; Professor Emeritus Pritzker School of Medicine; first tenured African-American professor at the University of Chicago Division of Biological Sciences.	[26][27]
Boykin, Otis	1920–1982	Inventor Engineer	Artificial heart pacemaker control unit.	[28]
Brady, St. Elmo	1884–1966	Chemist	Published three scholarly abstracts in Science and also collaborated on a paper published in Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry.	[29]
Branson, Herman	1914–1995	Physicist Educator	Protein structure research	[30][31]
Brooks, Charles	18xx–?	Inventor	Street sweeper truck and a type of paper punch
Brooks, Phil	19xx–	Inventor	First U.S. Patent for a disposable syringe
Henry Brown	18xx–?	Inventor	Invented fire safe	[32]
Burr, John Albert	18xx–?	Inventor	Rotary-blade lawn mower patent
Cardozo, William	1905–1962	Pediatrician	Sickle cell anemia studies. In October 1937, he published "Immunologic Studies in Sickle Cell Anemia" in the Archives of Internal Medicine; many of the findings are still valid today.
Carson, Ben	1951–	Pediatric Neurosurgeon	Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University First surgeon to successfully separate craniopagus twins	[33]
Carver, George Washington	1865–1943	Botanical researcher	Discovered hundreds of uses for previously useless vegetables and fruits, principally the peanut	[34][35][36][37]
Chappelle, Emmett	1925–	Scientist and researcher	Valuable contributions to several fields: medicine, biology, food science, and astrochemistry
Crosthwait, David, Jr.	1898–1976	Research engineer	Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning. Received some 40 U.S. patents relating to HVAC systems.
Dean, Mark	1957–	Computer scientist	Led the team that developed the ISA bus, and led the design team responsible for creating the first one-gigahertz computer processor chip.
Daly, Marie Maynard	1921–		First black American woman with a Ph.D. in chemistry.
Drew, Charles	1904–1950	Medical researcher
Easley, Annie	1933–	Computer scientist	Work at the Lewis Research Center of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
Ejeta, Gebisa	1950-	Geneticist	Won the World Food Prize in 2009 for his major contributions in the production of sorghum.
Ejigu, Kitaw	1948–2006	Systems engineer
Ferguson, Lloyd Noel	1918–?	Chemist Educator	Chemistry doctorate, first received (1943, University of California, Berkeley)
Fryer, Roland G., Jr.	1977–	Economist Social scientist Statistician	Inequality studies
Gates, Sylvester James	1950–	Theoretical physicist	Work on supersymmetry, supergravity, and superstring theory
Goode, Sarah E.	1850s–?	Inventor	Cabinet bed invention First African-American woman to receive a patent in the United States
Graves, Joseph L.	19xx–	Evolutionary biologist
Hall, Lloyd	1894–1971	Chemist
Haile, Sossina M.	1966-	Engineer	Work on fuel cells
Harris, James A.	1932–?		Co-discovered Rutherfordium (element 104) and Hafnium (element 105) at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory	[38]
Hawkins, Walter Lincoln	1911–1992	Scientist	Inventor at Bell Laboratories	[39]
Hodge, John E.	1914–1996	Chemist
Holley, Kerrie	19xx–	Research computer scientist at IBM	Co-creator of Service-Oriented Modeling and Architecture, SOMA and the Service Integration Maturity Model (SIMM)
Jarvis, Erich	19xx–	Neurobiologist	Duke University neuroscience bird songs studies.	[40][41][42]
Johnson, Lonnie	1949–	Engineer Inventor Physicist	Invented Super Soaker while researching thermal energy transfer engines; worked with NASA. Holder of over 80 patents	[43][44] [45][46]
Jones, Frederick McKinley	1893–1961	Inventor	Invented refrigerated truck systems	[47]
Julian, Percy	1899–1975	Chemist
Just, Ernest	1883–1941	Woods Hole Marine Biology Institute Biologist	Provided basic and initial descriptions of the structure-function-property relationship of the plasma membrane of biological cells.
Kittles, Rick	1967–	Geneticist	Work in tracing the ancestry of African Americans via DNA testing
Kountz, Samuel L.	1930–1981	Transplant surgeon Researcher	Organ transplantation pioneer, particularly renal transplant research and surgery. Author or co-author of 172 articles in scientific publications.
Latimer, Lewis	1848–1928	Inventor Draftsman Expert witness	Worked as a draftsman for both Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison. He became a member of Edison's Pioneers and served as an expert witness in many light bulb litigation lawsuits.	[48][49][50][51]
Lawson, Jerry	1940–2011	Computer engineer	Designer of Fairchild Channel F, the first programmable ROM cartridge-based video game console
Lee, Raphael	1949–	Surgeon Biomedical engineer	Paul and Aileen Russell Professor, Pritzker School of Medicine; MacArthur Fellow, Searle Scholar, Founder and Chairman, Avocet Polymer Technologies, Inc.; Founder and Chaiman, Renacyte BioMolecular Technologies, Inc; Discovered use of surfactant copolymers as molecular chaperones to augment endogenous injury repair mechanisms of living cells. Holder of many patents covering scar treatment therapies, tissue engineered ligaments, brain trauma therapies, protective garments.
Matzeliger, Jan	1852–1889	Inventor	Shoe assembly Machine	[52][53]
McBay, Henry	1914–1995	Chemist
McCoy, Elijah	1844–1929	Inventor	Invented the automatic lubricator for steam engines.
McLurkin, James	1972-	Roboticist
McNair, Ronald	1950–1986	Astronaut	Astronaut killed during mission STS-51-L in the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster
Montgomery, Benjamin	1819–1877	Inventor	Designed a steam operated propeller to provide propulsion to boats in shallow water
Morgan, Garrett	1877–1963	Inventor
Nour, Nawal M.	1966-	Gynecologist
Ogbu, John Uzo	1939–2003	Anthropologist	Race and intelligence studies
Oyekan, Soni	1946–	Chemical engineer
Poindexter, Hildrus	1901–1987	Bacteriologist Epidemiologist	Work on the epidemiology of tropical diseases including malaria
Petters, Arlie	1964–	Physicist	Work on the mathematical physics of gravitational lensing
Renfroe, Earl	1907–2000	Orthodontist
Rillieux, Norbert	1806–1894	Engineer Inventor
Russell, Jesse	1948–	Engineer Inventor	Wireless communications engineer
Sammons, Walter		Inventor	Patent for hot comb	[54]
Sowell, Thomas	1930–	Economist Social scientist
Steele, Claude	1946–	Psychologist Social scientist	Stereotype threat studies
Stiff, Lee	1941–	Mathematician	President of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics from 2000 to 2002	[55]
Thomas, Vivien	1910–1985	Surgical technician	Blue baby syndrome treatment in the 1940s
Tyson, Neil deGrasse	1958–	Astronomer	Researcher and popular educator in astronomy and the sciences
Walker, C.J.	1867–1919	Inventor	Created black cosmetic products.
Washington, Warren M.	1936–	Atmospheric scientist	Former chair of the National Science Board
West, James E.	1931–	Acoustician Inventor	Co-developed the foil electret microphone
Wilkins, J. Ernest, Jr.	1923–2011	Mathematician Engineer Nuclear scientist	Entered University of Chicago at age 13, PhD at 19, worked on the Manhattan Project, wrote over 100 scientific papers, helped recruit minorities into the sciences.	[56][57] [58]
Williams, Daniel	1856–1931
Williams, Scott W.	1943–	Mathematician
Williams, Walter E.	1936–	Economist Social scientist
Woods, Granville	1856–1910	Inventor

See also

• History of United States patent law
• Lemelson–MIT Prize
• NASA spinoff
• National Inventors Hall of Fame
• Science and technology in the United States
• Technological and industrial history of the United States
• Timeline of United States discoveries
• Timeline of United States inventions
• United States Patent and Trademark Office
• United States patent law
• Yankee ingenuity

References

1. ^ Virgie Ammons, Retrieved from About.com website February 18, 2011.
2. ^ Virgie Ammons, Retrieved from African-American Inventors website, February 18, 2011.
3. ^ "Dr. Harold Amos, 84; Mentor to Aspiring Minority Physicians". Los Angeles Times. 2003-03-08. http://articles.latimes.com/2003/mar/08/local/me-passings8.2. Retrieved 2011-03-11. 
4. ^ "George Edward Alcorn, Jr.". About.com. http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blbennett.htm. Retrieved 2008-02-27. 
5. ^ "Alcorn exceled in missile research". Pittsburgh Post Gazette. February 20, 2002. http://www.post-gazette.com/lifestyle/20020220kids0220p9.asp. Retrieved 2008-02-27. "George Edward Alcorn Jr. attended Occidental College in Los Angeles where he earned eight letters in basketball and football and was an honors student studying physics. He received his bachelor's degree in 1962 and a master's in nuclear physics from Howard University a year later. He attended Occidental College in Los Angeles where he earned eight letters in basketball and football and was an honors student studying physics. He received his bachelor's degree in 1962 and a master's in nuclear physics from Howard University a year later." 
6. ^ Who Is L.C. Bailey?, Answers.com website.
7. ^ The ninth and tenth paragraphs of the "His Story" page in official website of the Washington Interdependence Council: Administrators of the Benjamin Banneker Memorial (Retrieved 2008-08-06), the fourth paragraph in the webpage entitled "Who was Benjamin Banneker?" in official website of the Benjamin Banneker Academic High School, 800 Euclid Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20001 (Retrieved 2009-11-12), the fourth paragraph in the section entitled "BENJAMIN BANNEKER (1731–1806)" in "Benjamin Banneker" page in website of "ChickenBones: A Journal for Literary & Artistic African-American Themes" (Retrieved 2008-08-06), the third paragraph in Newbold, K., "Benjamin Banneker: A Brief Biography" in official website of The James Madison Center, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Virginia (Retrieved 2008-10-23), the first paragraph in the webpage entitled "Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806)" in official website of the Brookhaven National Laboratory (Retrieved 2008-08-08), the fifth and sixth paragraphs in "Benjamin Banneker in website of "The Black Inventor Online Museum" by Adscape International, LLC (Retrieved 2009-02-02), An Early American Hero: Benjamin Banneker in website of SuccessMaker Enterprise by Pearson Education, Inc. (Retrieved 2009-02-09), and the 1970 book by Claude Lewis entitled Benjamin Banneker: the man who saved Washington, New York, McGraw-Hill, relate part or all of this urban legend.
8. ^ Janet Emerson Bashen, Retrieved from About.com website March 14, 2011.
9. ^ James Bauer patent #3,490,571 (1/20/1970): Coin Changer Mechanism, Mary Bellis, About.com
10. ^ Henderson, Susan K. (1 March 1998). African-American Inventors III. Capstone Press. p. 12. ISBN 9781560656982. 
11. ^ "Modern Black Inventors". Jet (Johnson Pubishing Company) 101 (7): 55. February 4, 2002. ISSN 0021-5996. http://books.google.com/books?id=AbUDAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 25 February 2011. 
12. ^ Lambert, Laura (1 September 2007). Inventors and Inventions. Marshall Cavendish. p. 72. ISBN 9780761477631. 
13. ^ Bellis, Mary (2008). "Andrew Beard (1849-1921)". About.com: Inventors. http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blbeard.htm. Retrieved 2008-02-14. 
14. ^ Earl S. Bell, Retrieved from About.com website June 06, 2011.
15. ^ Earl S. Bell, Retrieved from uspto.gov website June 06, 2011.
16. ^ Earl S. Bell, Retrieved from atlantapost.com website June 06, 2011.
17. ^ Bellis, Mary. Inventors: Miriam Benjamin, Retrieved from About.com website, February 17, 2011.
18. ^ University of Chicago
19. ^ Keith Black, Arnold Mann, Brain Surgeon: A Doctor's Inspiring Encounters with Mortality and Miracles (New York: Wellness Central/Hachette, 2009, ISBN 9780446581097.
20. ^ Michael D. Lemonick, "The Tumor War", TIME, Heroes of Medicine special edition, Fall 1997 (retrieved May 15, 2009).
21. ^ Cattau, Daniel (July 2009). "David Blackwell 'Superstar'". Illinois Alumni (University of Illinois Alumni Association): pp. 32–34. 
22. ^ Maryland's African American Heritage: Henry Blair, ThinkQuest.
23. ^ About Inventors: Henry Blair
24. ^ "Bessie Blount Griffin". www.csupomona.edu. http://www.csupomona.edu/~plin/inventors/blount.html. Retrieved 2010-01-05. 
25. ^ "Virginia Women in History Past Honorees". www.lva.virginia.gov. http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/vawomen/2006/pasthonorees.htm. Retrieved 2010-01-05. 
26. ^ Terry, Don (July 27, 2008). "Insider has Obama's ear: What's she telling him?". Chicago Tribune. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-072708-jarrett,0,1640738.story. Retrieved 2008-08-23. 
27. ^ "The Bowman Society". Pritzker Pulse. Pritzker School of Medicine, University of Chicago. Spring 2005. http://pritzker.bsd.uchicago.edu/about/news/pritzkerpulse/2005spring/bowman.shtml. Retrieved March 15, 2009. 
28. ^ U.S. Department Of Energy. Black Contributors to Science and Energy Technology (Biographical sketch: Otis Boykin), U.S. Department Of Energy, Office of Public Affaris, U.S.Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1979, pp. 8–9, DOE/OPA-0035(79)
29. ^ University of Illinois biography, University of Illinois.
30. ^ PNAS Classics – Protein Structure
31. ^ Einseberg, David. "The discovery of the alpha-helix and beta-sheet, the principal structural features of proteins" PNAS 100(20):11207-11210 (2003) [1]
32. ^ "Henry Brown". blackinventor.com. http://www.blackinventor.com/pages/henrybrown. Retrieved 2010-02-06. "Henry Brown". blackinventor.com. http://www.blackinventor.com/pages/henrybrown. Retrieved 2010-02-06. 
33. ^ Health and Medical Biographies.Biography of Benjamin S. Carson.
34. ^ "Black Leonardo Book". Time Magazine. 1941-11-24. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,801330,00.html. Retrieved 2008-08-10. 
35. ^ Harlan, Volume 5, p. 481
36. ^ Special History Study from the National Park Service website
37. ^ The legacy of George Washington Carver-Friends & Colleagues (Henry Wallace)
38. ^ "James A. Harris". Journal of Chemical Education. http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/JCEWWW/features/echemists/Bios/Harris.html. Retrieved 27 May 2011. 
39. ^ McMurray, Emily, ed. Notable Twentieth-Century Scientists. Gale Research, Inc.: Detroit, 1995.
40. ^ Singing In The Brain, Duke Magazine, Nov-Dec 2001.
41. ^ [2], Duke News
42. ^ Erich Jarvis Named Howard Hughes Investigator, Duke Medicine News & Communications. Retrieved from Dukehealth.org.
43. ^ Soaking In Success, By Timothy Roche, Dec. 04, 2000, TIME
44. ^ Products Created by Independent Inventors, April 2nd, 2009, Inventors Digest
45. ^ Shooting for the Sun, By Logan Ward, October, 2010, The Atlantic
46. ^ Lonni Johnson --- Thermo-Electric Generator -- articles, patent, The Rex Research Civilization Kit.
47. ^ "July 12: Frederick M. Jones Patents Refrigeration System", Rebecca Goodman and Barrett J. Brunsman, This Day in Ohio History (Emmis Books, 2005) p214.
48. ^ Fouché, Rayvon, "Black Inventors in the Age of Segregation: Granville T. Woods, Lewis H. Latimer, and Shelby J. Davidson." The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore & London, 2003, ISBN 0-8018-7319-3
49. ^ Clarke, John Henrik (1983). Ivan Van Sertima. ed. Blacks in Science: Ancient and Modern. Piscataway,NJ: Transaction. pp. 230–233. ISBN 978-0-87855-941-1. 
50. ^ "Lewis Howard Latimer". National Park Service. http://www.nps.gov/edis/forkids/the-gifted-men-who-worked-for-edison.htm. Retrieved 2007-06-10. 
51. ^ List of 2006 NIHF inductees
52. ^ "Jan Matzeliger". The Black Inventor Online Museum. http://www.blackinventor.com/pages/jan-matzeliger.html. 
53. ^ "Inventor of the Week / Jan Matzeliger". Massachusetts Institute of Technology. August 2002. http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/matzeliger.html. 
54. ^ Bellis, Mary. "Walter Sammons". http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bl_Walter_Sammons.htm. Retrieved 27 May 2011. 
55. ^ NCTM past presidents, retrieved 2011-03-20.
56. ^ IEEE
57. ^ University of Chicago news release
58. ^ Zerbonia, Ralph G. (contrib. by Alic, Margaret) (2005) Contemporary Black Biography, Gale Research Inc, 2005, Vol.49 (Original from the University of Michigan), Digitized Sep 17, 2008, ISBN 0-7876-6731-5, ISBN 978-0-7876-6731-3, (biography viewable via Answers.com);

External links

• The Faces of Science: African Americans in the Sciences
• The Black Inventor Online Museum
• LittleAfrica.com website