Notable African-American scientists Benjamin Banneker, Charles Henry Turner and Mark Dean. Image Credit for Mark Dean: Stanford University.

Black History Month is a remembrance of important people and events in the history of the African-Americans and takes place February of each year.

The remembrance was first founded in 1926 by U.S. historian Carter G. Woodson as a week of remembrance named "Negro History Week". It was originally in the second weekend of February as two famous birthdays book-ended the week, that of former President Abraham Lincoln who abolished slavery and Frederick Douglas, the famous abolitionist who overturned the fallacy that blacks were inferior to whites.

I am reminded of Black History Month every January and February when comments start to appear on two of my blogs: Famous African-Americans Scientists & Famous African-Americans Scientists & Innovators: Part II. Usually the comments are those of thanks for helping with a report. Apparently, many local schools in the area give out an assignment around this time to research a famous African-Americans figure. So with that in mind, here are three more who have led to the annals of science and innovation.

Benjamin Banneker (1731 – 1806)
Mathematician, Astronomer, Surveyor

Banneker was born into a family of free blacks in Maryland. He learned the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic from his grandmother and a local Quaker schoolmaster. However, most of his knowledge was self-taught. He is famous for accurately making a wooden clock after studying the inner workings of one. He finished it at age 21 and it worked faithfully, striking on the hour, until his death. In 1791, he was appointed to the District of Columbia Commission, which handled the survey work that established the city’s original boundaries. From there, he went onto to write and publish the Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia Almanac and Ephemeris. The books contained information on tides, future eclipses, and medicinal formulas. Benjamin Banneker has been coined the first African-Americans intellectual.

Charles Henry Turner (1867 – 1923)
Zoologist

In 1892, Turner became the first African-Americans to hold a graduate degree at the University of Cincinnati. In 1907, he also became the first African-Americans awarded a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Even though he had a doctorate, he chose to teach at high schools. It is thought that he did so in order to devote more time to the observation of insects. He published 49 papers on insects; titles of them include: Habits of Mound-Building Ants, Experiments on the Color Vision of the Honeybee, and Psychological Notes on the Gallery Spider. Because of his observation and research, Turner proved for the first time that insects could hear and distinguish pitch.

Mark Dean (1957 to Present)
Innovator & Computer Scientist

Dean was born in Jefferson City, Tennessee. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Tennessee, a master's degree from Florida Atlantic University, and a Ph.D. from Stanford University – all in electrical engineering. He also holds three of the original nine IBM patents that brought about the IBM home personal computer. He led the team of IBM computer scientists that invented the ISA bus – the device enabled computer components to communicate to each other rapidly. This breakthrough made personal computers fast and efficient. He also led the design team that created the first one-gigahertz computer processor chip. For his contributions, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1997. He was also the first African-Americans to become an IBM Fellow, which is the highest level of technical excellence given at the company. Dean is still with IBM to this day as a Vice President. He oversees the company’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California.

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The reasons why African Americans are so burdened with HIV are complicated, says doctor Edward Machtinger, director of the Women's HIV Program at UCSF. The high rate of incarceration of African American men plays an important role, with men carrying HIV back to their female partners when they get out of prison.

HIV/AIDS is a disease of poverty. "Sexually transmitted diseases, in general, disproportionately afflict the poor," says Ruth Greenblatt, who is the founder of the Women's HIV Program and the principal investigator of the Northern California site of the Women's Interagency HIV Study. "If you have poor access to health care, you're less likely to see a doctor early on in your HIV infection, and thus you may be more likely to transmit infection, and you may be less likely to be able to afford condoms and medication."

HIV is now the leading cause of death for African American women between 24 and 35 years old. "Women tend to get sicker and die faster and more often than their male counterparts with HIV," says Machtinger. "One reason is that women don't perceive themselves to be at risk."

In its report, the Black AIDS Institute says that turning the tide is possible, but that it will require better planning and more funding from the federal government, and a stronger commitment from African American leaders. And the report calls for people to get tested. "Knowing your HIV status early can save your life," it concludes.

For patients who have access to drugs, infection with the virus ceased to be a death sentence in 1995, when combinations of drugs called highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) were developed. For some patients, drugs can reduce the amount of virus to undetectable levels.

But some virus always hides in the body's immune cells and attacks again if the patient stops taking their medication. Researchers are working on developing a drug to wipe out this latent virus, which could mean the end of AIDS.

Find out more about new research into HIV treatment and a possible cure by watching our HIV Research: Beyond the Vaccine television story report online.

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Dr. Daniel Hale Williams (1856 – 1931)
Physician
Williams was born in Pennsylvania. He helped support his family after his father died when he was nine. At first, he worked as a shoemaker’s apprentice. Then as a teenager, he learned to cut hair and became a barber. While working as a barber, he met Dr. Henry Palmer, who later became the Surgeon General of Wisconsin. Dr. Palmer took Daniel on as a medical apprentice; and helped him gain acceptance to medical school. Dr. Daniel Hale Williams graduated with his medical degree in 1883. Disillusioned with the second-class care for African Americans, he founded the Provident Hospital in Chicago in 1891, the first African American-owned hospital in the United States. He made history at Provident Hospital by performing the first successful open heart surgery in 1893. His patient James Cornish, injured from a knife wound, fully recovered and lived for another twenty years.

Percy L. Julian (1899 – 1975)
Chemist
Alabama-born Julian held a bachelor's degree from DePauw University. He was unable to procure a chemistry Ph.D. from Harvard University because of discrimination, and left after receiving a master's degree. He later received a Ph.D. from the University of Vienna in 1931. He became a pioneer in the chemical synthesis of medicinal drugs from plants. He gained over 130 chemical patents in his lifetime. The most notable patent was for the production of cortisone. For his contributions to medicine, he became the fist African American chemist inducted in the National Academy of Sciences.

Elijah McCoy (1844 – 1929)
Inventor
The son of escaped slaves from Kentucky, McCoy was born in Canada and educated in Scotland. Settling in Detroit, Michigan, he invented a lubricator for steam engines. It was patented in 1872. Lubricators were a boon for railroads. Trains could run faster with less need to stop for lubrication and maintenance, thus improving profit lines. McCoy improved on the lubricator design over his lifetime as well as amassing over 50 other patents. Lacking the revenue to manufacture his own lubricators, he sold the patents to employers until 1920 when he was able to open Elijah McCoy Manufacturing Company. It is still disputed today if the phrase “The real McCoy” was derived to compare McCoy lubricators to generic and inferior copies.

Cat Aboudara is the Special Projects Manager at California Academy of Sciences and works in the public programs division. The Academy is a wonderful fit for her because of her curiosity about the natural world and her experience in working with native California wildlife.

latitude: 37.7734, longitude: -122.454

George Washington Carver: (1864-1943)
Agricultural Chemist and Innovator

On the epitaph on the grave of George Washington Carver it reads, "He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world.”

Through his work as an agricultural chemist, Dr. George Washington Carver changed the agriculture of the South by discovering three hundred uses for peanuts and hundreds more uses for soybeans, pecans and sweet potatoes. From the peanut Dr. Carver created meal, instant and dry coffee, bleach, tar remover, wood filler, metal polish, paper, ink, shaving cream, rubbing oil, linoleum, synthetic rubber, and plastics. From the soybean he obtained flour, breakfast food, and milk. He also significantly boosted the agricultural economy by formulating the crop rotation method, which revolutionized agricultural practice. He educated the farmers to alternate the soil-depleting cotton crops with soil-enriching crops such as peanuts, peas, soybeans, sweet potato, and pecans. He did not profit from these discoveries but freely gave them for the benefit of mankind, and it was said he turned down a $100,000 salary in order to continue his agricultural work. Rising from slavery in Diamond, Missouri, Doctor Carver struggled to gain an education and used it to give back to the land. Dr. Carver died in 1943 and was buried next to Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee Institute where he worked as the Director of Agriculture. On July 17, 1960 the George Washington Carver National Monument was dedicated at Dr. Carver's birth site. This was the first U.S. federal monument dedicated to an African-American.

Matthew Henson

Matthew Alexander Henson (1866-1955)
Arctic Explorer

"As I stood at the top of the world and thought of the hundreds of men who had lost their lives in the effort to reach it, I felt profoundly grateful that I, as the personal attendant of the commander, had the honor of representing my race in the historic achievement."

Matthew Henson was the first man to reach the geographic North Pole with long time colleague and explorer Robert Peary. Henson was born of poor parents in Charles County, Maryland. His parents died at the age of twelve and he was then shipped off to be a cabin boy on a merchant ship. He educated himself on the sea and became a skilled navigator. Henson met Commander Robert Peary in 1888 and joined him on an expedition to Nicaragua. Peary was impressed with Henson’s seamanship and recruited him as a colleague. For years they made many trips together, including Arctic voyages in which Henson developed trading with the Eskimos by learning their language, building sleds and training dog teams. In 1909, Peary led his eighth attempt to reach the North Pole and selected Henson to be one of the team of six who would make the final run to the Pole. Peary became ill before reaching the summit and sent Henson ahead as a scout. Later, when measurements were taken, it was discovered that Henson, during his scouting had been the first mortal to walk on the top of the world. Although it was Peary who got most of the acclaim for the exploration, it was Henson who made the first historic steps. On November 28, 2000, the National Geographic Society recognized those steps and awarded the Hubbard Medal to Matthew A. Henson posthumously.

Cat Aboudara is the Special Projects Manager at California Academy of Sciences and works in the public programs division. The Academy is a wonderful fit for her because of her curiosity about the natural world and her experience in working with native California wildlife.

latitude: 37.769, longitude:-122.467