A00071 - Dolores Shockley, First African American Woman to Receive a Doctorate in Pharmacology

 Dolores Shockley

 The First African American Woman

 to Receive a 

Doctorate in Pharmacology 

Dolores Cooper Shockley (b. April 21, 1930, Clarksdale, Mississippi – d. October 10, 2020, Nashville, Tennessee) was the first black woman to receive a PhD in pharmacology in the United States and one of the first African American students to receive a PhD from Purdue University.  After obtaining her PhD she became faculty at the historically black school Meharry Medical College where she subsequently became the first black woman to chair a Pharmacology department in the United States in 1988. Her research contributions included studying the effects of chemical pollutants on the brain and identifying pharmacological agents that interact with drugs of abuse such as cocaine. She was a distinguished scholar and emeritus professor at Meharry Medical College. 

Dolores Cooper Shockley was born in 1930 in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Shockley grew up in a segregated society in the small rural town of Clarksdale, Mississippi, where at the time black and white children attended racially segregated schools. Shockley said in an interview that her school in Clarksdale had very few school supplies and that she learned her science from chemistry sets at home. Motivated by the lack of a drug store to serve the black community in Clarksdale, Shockley decided to pursue a degree in pharmacology during college with the initial idea of starting a pharmacy in her hometown although she later decided to pursue a research career.

Shockley attended Xavier University of Louisiana where she completed a bachelor's degree in pharmacology in 1951. She decided to pursue a graduate degree and attended Purdue University from 1951 to 1955 where she became one of the first black students to receive a PhD from the institution. During graduate school she experienced racism when trying to rent a room outside campus. During an interview Shockley said that while at West Lafayette, Indiana some people refused to serve her. About this Shockley said 

"This was extremely hurtful because you never knew when you would be rejected or refused. I went to my room and cried several times. But my zealous commitment to succeed propelled me to work harder to overcome my lack of prior experience." 

While Shockley was at Purdue University in  the 1950s black students were not allowed to get haircuts at the student center.  This discrimination prompted Shockley and other students to petition the president to reverse this.  In addition, Shockley became an activist in her community by joining a group of diversity students called "Panel of Americans", which consisted of a group of students from different ethnicities and races that visited churches and community organizations to talk about how they too were Americans. Regarding her work in this student group Shockley said 

"I believe or hope that we dispelled some of the fallacy of racial, ethnic and religious inferiority".

Shockley became the first black woman to receive a PhD in Pharmacology. After finishing her PhD she received a Fulbright Fellowship and worked with Knud Moller at the Pharmacology Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark from 1955 to 1957. When Shockley returned to the United States she was offered a job at Meharry Medical College in Tennessee as an assistant professor. When Shockley complained that her salary offer was lower than that of all men, her department chair said that as a married woman she did not deserve the same salary. Despite these challenges she continued to fight for salary equity. 

In 1967, Shockley became an associate professor at Meharry and, in 1988, she became the chair of the Pharmacology Department making her the first black woman to be the chair of a Pharmacology Department in the United States. During her time as a chairperson Shockley focused on improving the Pharmacology PhD program funding and training quality at Meharry.  In efforts to expand training opportunities for students at her institution, Shockley started a collaboration with Vanderbilt University in which they shared student seminar series and department retreats. The PhD Program at Meharry led by Shockley awarded degrees to the majority of black pharmacologists in the country. Shockley served on many national committees including NIH, NSF, NRC, and FDA committees and held office in the American Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET).

Shockley had two main lines of research, one related to neurotoxicity of pollutants and one related to identifying pharmacological agents that interact with cocaine with the goal of developing therapies for drug abuse. Shockley studied how pollutants such as benzo(a)pyrene and flouranthene affect the nervous system. Her research showed that these pollutants have neurotoxic and behavioral effects.  Furthermore, her research showed that the effects of benzo(a)pyrene, which is present in tobacco smoke and grilled meats, are mediated by oxidative stress. In addition, Shockley researched how calcium blockers affect the neurotoxic and behavioral effects of stimulants, such as cocaine, with the goal of identifying a potential pharmacological agent to act as antidote to cocaine toxicity. Her research identified that Isradipine, a calcium channel antagonist, decreased the behavioral effects of cocaine in rats.

During an interview in 1997 Shockley was asked what her biggest accomplishment in science was to which she said being an educator and the work she did to improve the PhD training program at Meharry, which was serving a predominantly African American student population.  Related to her contributions Shockley said  

“I’ve tried to reinstate and strongly promote graduate education [at Meharry]. About half of all the minority PhD's in pharmacology have come from our program. I think this will be my greatest contribution".

Shockley was a distinguished alumni for Xavier University of Louisiana and Purdue University. Shockley received the Lederle Faculty Award from 1963 to 1966. Many scientific organizations and societies have created awards in Shockley's honor. In 2010, the American Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics established a travel award in her honor for underrepresented students to attend their Annual meeting. In 2009, The Dolores C. Shockley Lectureship and Mentoring Award was inaugurated at the School of Medicine, Vanderbilt University, in honor of the collaborative work Shockley did with the department of Pharmacology at Vanderbilt. In 2017, the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology presented the Dolores Shockley Minority Mentoring Award to recognize college members who have successfully mentored young scientists from underrepresented minorities in the field of neuropsychopharmacology. 

Dr. Dolores C. Shockley married Dr. Thomas E. Shockley, a microbiologist. Shockley had four children and was married for 43 years until Thomas died.  Shockley died on October 10, 2020 in Nashville, Tennessee.

A00070 - Gladys Mae West , African American Mathematician Who Is The Mother of the Global Positioning System (GPS)

 Gladys Mae West

The African American Mathematician

Who Is 

The Mother of the Global Positioning System (GPS)

Gladys Mae West (née Brown; b. October 27, 1930, Sutherland, Virginia). An American mathematician. She is known for her contributions to the mathematical modeling of the shape of the Earth, and her work on the development of satellite geodesy models, that were later incorporated into the Global Positioning System (GPS).  West was inducted into the United States Air Force Hall of Fame in 2018. West was also awarded the Webby Lifetime Achievement Award for the development of satellite geodesy models.

Gladys Mae Brown was born in Sutherland, Virginia, in Dinwiddie County, a rural county south of Richmond. Her family was an African American farming family in a community of sharecroppers. She spent much of her childhood working on her family's small farm. As well as working on the farm, her mother worked in a tobacco factory and her father worked for the railroad. West saw education as her way to a different life.

At West's high school, the top two students from each graduating class received full scholarships to Virginia State College (now Virginia State University), a historically black public university. West graduated as valedictorian in 1948 and received the scholarship. At Virginia State University (VSU), West chose to study mathematics, a subject that was mostly studied at her college by men. She also joined the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. West graduated in 1952 with a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics, and then taught math and science for two years in Waverly, Virginia. West returned to VSU to complete a Master of Mathematics degree, graduating in 1955. Afterward, she began another teaching position in Martinsville, Virginia. 

In 1956, West was hired to work at the Naval Proving Ground in Dahlgren, Virginia, (now the Naval Surface Warfare Center). Here, she was the second black woman ever hired and one of only four black employees. West was a computer programmer in the Dahlgren division, and a project manager for processing systems for satellite data analysis. Concurrently, West earned a master's degree in Public Administration from the University of Oklahoma. 

In the early 1960s, West participated in an award-winning study that proved the regularity of Pluto's motion relative to Neptune. Subsequently, West began to analyze analyze satellite altimeter data from NASA's Geodetic Earth Orbiting program, to create models of the Earth's shape. Wes t became project manager for the Seasat radar altimetry project, the first satellite that could remotely sense oceans. West's work cut her team's processing time in half, and she was recommended for a commendation.

From the mid-1970s through the 1980s, West programmed an IBM 7030 Stretch computer to deliver increasingly precise calculations for the shape of the Earth; an ellipsoid with additional undulations known as the geoid. To generate an accurate geopotential model West needed to use complex algorithms to account for variations in the gravitational, tidal, and other forces that distort Earth's shape.

In 1986, West published Data Processing System Specifications for the Geosat Satellite Radar Altimeter, a 51-page technical report from The Naval Surface Weapons Center (NSWC). This explained how to improve the accuracy of geoid heights and vertical deflection, important components of satellite geodesy. This was achieved by processing data from the radio altimeter on the Geosat satellite, which went into orbit on March 12, 1984.

West worked at Dahlgren for 42 years and retired in 1998. She later completed a PhD in Public Administration at Virginia Tech by distance-learning.

West's vital contributions to GPS technology were recognized when a member of her sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha read a short biography West had submitted for an alumni function.

West was inducted into the United States Air Force Hall of Fame in 2018, one of the highest honors bestowed by Air Force Space Command (AFSPC).  The AFSPC press release hailed her as one of "the 'Hidden Figures' part of the team who did computing for the US military in the era before electronic systems", a reference to the 2016 book by Margot Lee Shetterly, which was adapted into the film Hidden Figures. Captain Godfrey Weekes, commanding officer at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division, described the role played by West in the development of Global Positioning System: "She rose through the ranks, worked on the satellite geodesy, and contributed to the accuracy of GPS and the measurement of satellite data. As Gladys West started her career ... in 1956, she likely had no idea that her work would impact the world for decades to come." West agreed, saying "When you’re working every day, you’re not thinking, 'What impact is this going to have on the world?' You're thinking, 'I've got to get this right.'"

As an alumna of Virginia State University, West won the award for "Female Alumna of the Year" at the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Awards in 2018.

West was selected by the BBC as part of their 100 Women of 2018.  In 2021, she was awarded the Prince Philip Medal by the United Kingdom's Royal Academy of Engineering.

West met her husband, Ira, at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division, where he also worked as a mathematician. They were two of only four black employees at the time. They were married in 1957. They had three children (Carolyn, David and Michael), and seven grandchildren. The West family went to Chapel on the Proving Ground every Sunday. 

Before being hired at Dahlgren, West initially turned down the job due to its location and the requirement to interview. West did not have a car and could not find Dahlgren on a map, and she believed that they would reject her after the interview because of her race, so she decided to wait to hear back from other applications. However, Dahlgren contacted her again, offering her the job without the need to interview. The job offered twice the salary of her teaching position. Being hired solely on her qualifications, with a salary that would eventually help her support her family, was a rare find for a black woman at that time.

In 1954, the Supreme Court issued the landmark decision of Brown vs. Board of Education, a ruling that American state laws that established racial segregation in public schools were unconstitutional. However, the Virginia of the late 1950s was still segregated since the Supreme Court had not specified which states were required to reestablish institutions in accordance with the new ruling. Groups such as the Ku Klux Klan were still at large, and the prospect of moving to a rural neighborhood in a southern state was daunting for an unmarried black woman.

The Civil Rights movement was fully underway during her time at the base. Though she supported the movement, she could not participate in protests because she was a government employee. In Boomtown, where married people lived on base, she was part of a club of black women who discussed civil rights topics.

During her career, West encountered many hardships because of racism against African Americans. A prime example was the lack of recognition she received while working, while her white coworkers received praise and added privileges. Her biography makes clear her disappointment at not being granted projects that included travel and exposure.

Despite her role in creating GPS, West continued to prefer using paper maps over Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)-based navigation systems, saying, "I'm a doer, hands-on kind of person. If I can see the road and see where it turns and see where it went, I am more sure."