According to the American Chemical Society website, Angie Lena Turner King (1905 – 2004) was one of the first African-American women to earn bachelor degrees in chemistry and mathematics (West Virginia State in 1927). After that, she taught at West Virginia State High School and attended graduate school during the summers at Cornell University, where she received a master’s degree in physical chemistry in 1931.
Later, she earned a Ph..D in mathematics education (University of Pittsburgh, 1955) — the first African-American woman to do so. King became an associate professor at West Virginia State College and refurbished its laboratory to improve the quality of her students’ scientific research. One of her students was Katherine Johnson, who is widely known as the central mathematician in the movie “Hidden Figures.”
Submitted by Professor Danica A Nowosielski, Biology, Chemistry and Physics.