BIPOC Women of STEM

The Trailblazers

Yvonne Clark

Yvonne Clark was a pioneer for African-American and women engineers. She was the first woman at Howard University to get a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering. Clark also made history at Vanderbilt University, as she was the first woman to earn a master's degree in Engineering Management.

Affectionately called "TSU's First Lady of Engineering," Clark taught at Tennessee State University in Nashville, TN, for 55 years.

Katherine Johnson

Katherine Johnson was an American Mathematician whose calculations were integral for the first crewed space flights from 1953 to 1988. She was one of the first African-American women to work at NASA as a scientist.

In 2015, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, stating, "Katherine G. Johnson refused to be limited by society's expectations of her gender and race while expanding the boundaries of humanity's reach."