Brogan Holcombe
M.S. Student
Wildlife Conservation & Sciences
Virginia Tech
Sunday Scientist Shoutouts
This campaign highlights scientists, activists, or STEM contributors that may have been systematically excluded at the time of their contributions. Their exclusion could have been due to their race, sex, orientation, or another aspect of their identity that people/society at that time felt as though they should be excluded from STEM history.
With this campaign, I post every Sunday about a scientist, activist, or STEM contributor that may have gotten overlooked or not received the recognition they deserved for their hard work. Their perseverance and dedication to their work and field, even in difficult, discriminatory, and challenging times, are amazing and inspiring.
Follow us on Twitter or check out the weekly Sunday Scientist Shoutout Newsletter here!
Minor-Huff was an Environmental Protection Specialist whose 35-year career included positions in numerous government agencies.
Ride was the first American woman to enter space on June 18, 1983, but it was not widely known that she was a LGBTQ+ community member.
Turner studied insect behavior, navigation, and animal physiology. The first recorded African-American to do so.
Douglas was an American women's suffrage and environmental advocate, well know for her continuous dedication to defending the Everglades.
Parker is one of the first female Native American archaeologists, excavating key archaeological findings.
Edge was an environmental & suffrage activist, described in The New Yorker as "the only honest, unselfish, indomitable hellcat in the history of conservation."
Edmonstone was a black naturalist and taught taxidermy to many naturalists in the 1800s, including Charlies Darwin.
Ernest Just broke down racial barriers and conducted groundbreaking research in cell biology and continues to influence it today.
Brown was the first Black employee of the Smithsonian Institution, having a 54-year career from 1852 to 1906.
Ali was a Malay teenager who assisted British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace from 1855 to 1862.
Daly was an American biochemist and the first Black American woman to earn a Ph.D. in chemistry in the US.
Ross was the 1st Native American female engineer at Lockheed and her work helped with many space launch and travel endeavors.
Bouchet was a physicist and educator and the first Black American to earn a Ph.D. from an American university in 1876.
Stevens was an American geneticist who discovered that different configurations of chromosomes determine sex.
Murie was a naturalist dubbed the “Grandmother of the Conservation Movement” — an instrumental part of conservation efforts in the US and worldwide.
L. Braun was a renowned botanist, ecologist, and expert on eastern US forests—she was a pioneering woman in the field of natural resources.
A. Braun was an American entomologist and leading authority on microlepidoptera—spearheading women’s way into the natural resource field.
Betsch was an American environmentalist and devoted civil rights activist known as the “Beach Lady”.
Soskin is a ranger with the National Park Service and at the age of 99 (as of Jan 2021), she is still serving as a ranger.
Sessions was an American landscape architect and botanist/horticulturist in San Diego and she is known as the “Mother of Balboa Park.”
Clark is an American ichthyologist who worked with fish and shark behavior - container her the title of “The Shark Lady”.
Young persevered through racial discrimination and sexism in academia to make great contributions to the field of zoology.
A Black American environmental activist and founder of the African American Environmentalist Association and the Center for Environment, Commerce & Energy.
Maathai was a Kenyan environmental and political activist, the founder of the Green Belt Movement, and the first African woman to win the Nobel Prize.
Johnson is dedication to increasing diversity in nature enthusiasts. He also works hard tells the truth in the Buffalo Soldiers’ history.
Blackwell was a British physician and the first woman in the United States to earn her medical degree, promoting education for women in both the US and UK.
Em. Blackwell was the 3rd woman to earn a medical degree in the US, an LGBTQ+ community member, and worked to create a more equitable medical field.
Easley was a Black American computer scientist, mathematician, and rocket scientist for NASA and NACA.
Name (Egyptian Arabic): سميرة موسى Moussa was the first female Egyptian nuclear physicist and organized the Atomic Energy Peace Conference.
Gomez was a Filipino marine biologist who sought to protect the Philippine archipelago's marine resources and coral reef systems.
Author of “The Handbook of Nature Study,” Comstock was a nature artist who also illustrated entomological textbooks, and both wrote and illustrated several books.
Richard is a Black American environmental activist dedicated to fighting environmental racism—fighting for social justice in "Cancer Alley".
Telkes was a Hungarian-American scientist and inventor who helped develop modern solar energy technologies, coining her nickname of "the Sun Queen".
Tabei was a Japanese environmentalist and the first woman to summit Mount Everest and the first woman to ascend the Seven Summits (the highest peak on every continent).
Nishida was a Japanese primatologist, establishing one of the first long-term chimpanzee field research sites in 1965 and a true pioneer in chimpanzee field research.
Imanishi was a Japanese ecologist, primatologist, and anthropologist who founded the Kyoto University's Primate Research Institute.
One of the first female Philippines doctors in the US - Nepomuceno was one of the early advocates for children with Downe’s Syndrome to be mainstreamed into society.
Alcala is a Filipino environmental biologist known for his work building sanctuaries, studied amphibians & reptiles, and promoting aquatic biodiversity.
Payne was an astronomer and astrophysicist who proposed a groundbreaking theory that stars were composed primarily of hydrogen and helium.
Kameny was an astronomer dismissed from the Army due to his homosexuality and became a prominent gay rights activist.
Onslow was a female British biochemist who studied flower color inheritance and was one of the first female lecturers at Cambridge University.
Young was an American soldier who was the first Black US National Park Superintendent, was a Buffalo Soldier, and earned many awards from the US Military.
Gates was an LGBTQ+ marine biologist who studied coral-algae symbiosis in coral reefs.
Carruthers was a Black American inventor and physicist who perfected the compact UV camera/spectrograph for NASA to use on Apollo 16 mission.
Jacobi was an American physician and suffrage activist, especially in the medical field.
Turnbull was an LGBTQ+ British-American anthropologist who studied African culture and focused on ethnomusicology.
Hogg was born on this day in 1905! Hogg was an astronomer who trailblazed research focused on global clusters and variable stars.
Massie was a Black American chemist that worked on the Manhatten Project and was the first Black American to teach at the US Naval Academy.
Chappelle was a Black American scientist who invented several STEM fields and is named the “Father of Bio-luminescence.”
Begay was a Navajo/Ute nuclear physicist who studied alternative uses of laser, electron, and ion beams as alternative energy sources.
Clayton was a transgender nuclear physicist who dedicated themselves to their career while advocating for LGBTQ+, especially trans, rights.
Bath was the first Black American to finish an ophthalmology residence & the first female Black American doctor to receive a medical patent.
Ball was a Black American chemist who created an effective leprosy treatment, the Ball Method.
Wong-Staal was a Chinese-American virologist who linked that HIV causes AIDS.
Ochoa became the first Hispanic woman to ever go into space on the 1993 Discovery Mission.
Friedlaender was an LGBTQ+ scientist who studied math, physics, botany, and zoology. He was also an LGBTQ+ rights advocate in the 1800s.
Barres was an openly transgender neurobiologist who studied the interaction between neurons and glial cells in the nervous system.
Towles was a Black American LGBTQ+ anthropologist who studied African and Middle Eastern anthropology linked to slavery.
Baker was an LGTBQ+ physician who focused on children’s health and was the first woman to a doctorate in public health.
Pearce was an LGTBQ+ American pathologist who developed the treatment for African sleeping sickness (trypanosomiasis).
Earle is a marine biologist who has dedicated her career to protecting the ocean and is NOAA's first female chief scientist.
Onesimus was an African slave in Boston who taught inoculation to Cotton Mather to help treat smallpox, leading to creating a future smallpox vaccine.
Amos was a Black American microbiologist and was the first Black department chair at Harvard Medical School.
Hawkins was a Black American chemist & engineer who was a pioneer of polymer chemistry.
Saruhashi (猿橋 勝子) was a Japanese geochemist who first measured seawater’s CO2 levels and was dedicated to increasing women’s status in Japan.
M. Clark was a Black American psychologist who studied segregation's impact on Black children was used in Brown v. Board of Edu. She was the first Black woman to earn her PhD in psychology at Columbia.
K. Clark was a Black American psychologist who studied Black children's self-image and was the first Black American to earn a PhD in psychology at Columbia University.
Full name Dr. María de los Ángeles Alvariño González, Alvariño was a Spanish biologist who was globally renowned for her work on plankton biology.
If you have any suggestions for a Sunday Scientist Shoutout, please email me (brogan@vt.edu) or message me on Twitter!
(page last updated 1/6/22)
Sunday Scientist Shoutout
I began this Twitter campaign to highlight scientists, activists, or contributors to STEM who may have been systematically excluded at the time of their contributions to their fields and society. These exclusions could have been due to their race, sex, orientation, or another aspect of their identity that people at that time felt as though they should be excluded from STEM history.
I believe is unright, unfair, and unacceptable, but has led me to work on #SundayScientistShoutout!
With this hashtag, I post every Sunday about a scientist, activist, or contributed to STEM in some capacity who may not have gotten the recognition they deserved for their dedication to their work and field.
Click on each image for a link to the #SundayScientistShoutout thread for each person.
View the newsletter page here!