Quick reads: Dr Marjorie Lee Brown

I'll be a little light on blogging this week so I'll mostly be sharing a couple of quick reads I've stumbled upon recently.

This one is presented in light of my post last week on National HBCU Week and the accompanying post from my colleague, DrugMonkey (whose referral generated even more discussion).

This tidbit is from the journalism and news production students of James Logan High School in Union City, CA:

"I always, always, always like mathematics." Marjorie Lee Browne.

Marjorie Lee Browne (9 Sept 1914-19 Oct 1979) was a notable mathematics educator, the second African-American woman to receive a doctoral degree in the U.S., and one of the first black women to receive a doctorate in mathematics in the U.S. . .

. . .She was one of the first two African-American women in the US to earn a doctorate in mathematics [from the University of Michigan], along with Evelyn Boyd Granville who also earned a Ph.D. in 1949.

Browne then joined the faculty at North Carolina College (now North Carolina Central University (NCCU)), where she taught and researched for thirty years. She was also the head of the department for much of her time at NCCU, from 1951 to 1970. . .

. . .Browne saw the importance of computer science early on, writing a $60,000 grant to IBM to bring a computer to NCCU in 1960 -- one of the first computers in academic computing, and probably the first at a historically black school.

I follow a lot of stories on the history of women in science but this one was particularly noteworthy.