Black Innovators in STEM

3D image technology has changed entertainment and science as we know it - all thanks to Valerie Thomas. This futuristic concept became a reality and continues to shape today’s technology, all thanks to this NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientist and inventor. Before her invention, visual displays were limited to flat, 2-dimensional images. Then, in 1976, after witnessing an illusion where a lightbulb appeared lit despite being removed from its socket, Thomas began experimenting with concave mirrors. By 1980, she patented the “illusion transmitter,” a groundbreaking system that uses mirrors and cameras to create realistic 3D images - holograms - that forever changed how we perceive visual information. This invention was later used in NASA satellite technology, revolutionising how we analyse and interpret data from space. It has also since been adapted for use in surgery, enhancing precision in medical imaging and procedures, And, of course, has influenced the production of television and video screens, paving the way for immersive entertainment experiences. But her legacy extends far beyond holography: 👉🏾 Thomas played a critical role in developing image-processing systems for Landsat, the first satellite to send images of Earth from space. 👉🏾 She helped to develop computer program designs that supported research on Halley's Comet, the ozone layer, and satellite technology. 👉🏾 She’s received many awards for her work and her activism, including an Award of Merit from the Goddard Space Flight Center and the NASA Equal Opportunity Medal. Thomas retired from NASA in 1995, but her impact didn’t stop there. She continues to inspire generations, to enter STEM fields and break new ground. Her invention changed how we see the world - literally and figuratively, influencing everything from medical technologies to entertainment. #ReclaimingNarratives

The next time you make a video call, remember: a Black woman in the ‘80s made it possible. In 1982, Marian Croak joined Bell Labs with a PhD in quantitative analysis and social psychology from USC. She started in Human Factors Research. Her job: figure out how tech could make life better for real people. At the time, the modern internet didn’t exist. But she saw what was coming. Most telecom companies were betting on ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) to transmit voice, video, and text. Marian said no. She pushed AT&T to adopt TCP/IP—the protocol that still powers the internet today. Then she went further… What if your voice could travel as digital data? What if a phone call didn’t need a phone line? That’s how she helped invent the foundations of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). She worked on quality control, latency, and how to make voice over the internet sound human. Then came her second breakthrough: text-to-donate. In 2003, Marian saw AT&T build a text voting system for American Idol. Fans could vote via SMS. She had a thought: if people can vote by text, why can’t they donate too? In 2005, after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, she and co-inventor Hossein Eslambolchi built it. It raised $130,000 for relief organizations. Five years later, after the Haiti earthquake, the same system raised $43M via mobile donations. She received a U.S. patent for it: “Method and Apparatus for Dynamically Debiting a Donation.” In 2013, she was awarded the Thomas Edison Patent Award for it. In total, she holds over 200 patents, with nearly half related to VoIP. By the time she left AT&T in 2014, she was Senior Vice President of Applications and Services Infrastructure, overseeing 2,000 engineers and more than 500 projects in enterprise mobility and consumer wireline tech. Then she joined Google. There, she became VP of Engineering. She helped bring broadband to underserved communities across Africa and Asia. She launched Google’s Center for Responsible AI and Human-Centered Technology, building ethical frameworks for the future of artificial intelligence. Her team is applying AI to problems such as: – Maternal health monitoring in developing nations – Early disease detection – Climate impact mitigation In her words: “AI can amplify the worst stereotypes and spread misinformation. It has to serve the deepest needs of humanity.” In 2022, she was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, the National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 💡Follow Justine Juillard to read 365 stories of women innovators in 365 days. Tap the 🔔 on my profile so you don’t miss a single story.

Alice Parker was a groundbreaking African American inventor whose work helped lay the foundation for modern central heating systems. In 1919, she was granted a U.S. patent for a gas-powered heating system that introduced the concept of using natural gas to heat individual rooms through a centralized structure. At a time when most homes relied on fireplaces or wood- and coal-burning stoves, Parker envisioned a safer, more efficient, and more controllable way to heat entire buildings. Her design proposed a system that distributed heat through ducts, allowing different rooms to be warmed individually rather than relying on a single heat source. This idea was revolutionary because it anticipated zoning—one of the most important principles in modern HVAC systems. Parker also focused on safety, designing her system to reduce the risk of fires, which were common with open flames and traditional stoves in early 20th-century homes. Although Parker’s exact system was not widely adopted during her lifetime, her ideas directly influenced the evolution of central heating technology used today. Modern gas furnaces, ductwork, and zoned heating systems all reflect concepts she pioneered more than a century ago. Her contribution stands as an important but often overlooked example of how Black women have shaped everyday technologies that millions of people rely on—often without knowing whose vision made them possible. #BlackHistoryMonth #blackhistory #blackgirlsrock #BlackGirlMagic

Gladys Mae Brown, a remarkable mathematician often hailed as a "hidden figure," defied the limited opportunities available to young Black girls in rural Virginia. Despite the prevailing norms pushing towards farming or tobacco processing, her academic excellence led her to Virginia State College, now Virginia State University, where she obtained a mathematics degree in 1952. Subsequently, she pursued a master's degree while navigating racial segregation and discrimination in the job market. In 1956, Gladys joined the U.S. Naval Proving Ground as a mathematician, becoming only the fourth Black employee. Renowned for her prowess in solving intricate mathematical problems manually, she later transitioned to computer programming. Her contributions were instrumental in projects like the Naval Ordinance Research Calculator and the groundbreaking Seasat satellite initiative, a pioneer in ocean surveillance technology. From the mid-1970s through the 1980s, West programmed an IBM 7030 Stretch computer to deliver increasingly precise calculations to model the shape of the Earth – an ellipsoid with irregularities, known as the geoid. Generating an extremely accurate model required her to employ complex algorithms to account for variations in gravitational, tidal, and other forces that distort Earth's shape. West's team once discovered an error during the study and out of all of the brilliant minds, she was the only one that was able to solve it. West's data ultimately became the basis for the Global Positioning System (GPS). Leading the Seasat project in 1978, Gladys West demonstrated the potential of satellites in gathering crucial oceanographic data. Her work paved the way for GEOSAT, a revolutionary satellite program enabling precise calculations of Earth's surface features. These innovations, including the development of a geoid model, significantly contributed to the accuracy of the GPS system we rely on today. Throughout her illustrious career, Gladys West continued her academic pursuits, earning multiple master's degrees and a Ph.D. even after retirement. Her memoir, "It Began with A Dream," co-authored with M. H. Jackson, not only chronicles her extraordinary journey but also stands as an inspiration for women and girls aspiring to break barriers and excel in STEM fields. Dr. West is the only black woman to be inducted into the Air Force Missile and Space Pioneers Hall of Fame and was recently inducted into the National Black College Alumni Hall of Fame.

The gas mask and the modern traffic light were both invented by the same person: Garrett Morgan. Born in 1877 to parents who had been enslaved, Garrett Morgan grew up with limited formal education but an extraordinary mechanical mind. He became an inventor at a time when Black Americans were largely shut out of patents, funding, and recognition. In 1914, Morgan invented a breathing device designed to protect people from smoke and toxic fumes. His invention gained national attention in 1916 after an explosion trapped workers in a water tunnel beneath Lake Erie in Cleveland. Morgan and his brother used the device to rescue several men who would have otherwise suffocated. This invention later became the foundation for modern gas masks and firefighter breathing equipment. A few years later, after witnessing a serious traffic accident, Morgan turned his attention to road safety. Cars, bicycles, and pedestrians were sharing streets with almost no regulation. In 1923, he patented an improved traffic signal that introduced a warning phase between “stop” and “go.” That idea evolved into the three-signal traffic light system used around the world today. Despite the importance of his inventions, Morgan often faced discrimination and was sometimes forced to sell his patents through white intermediaries to be taken seriously. Even so, his work was adopted internationally and continues to save lives every day. #BlackHistoryMonth

Before central heat, there was just fire and hope—until Alice H. Parker rewrote the winter script. In the freezing winters of early 20th-century America, warmth came at a cost. Wood and coal stoves roared day and night, filling homes with smoke, ash, and constant risk. For many families, staying warm meant staying near danger. But in 1919, a Black woman from New Jersey dared to imagine something radical: safe, whole-home heating—powered not by embers, but by ingenuity. Alice H. Parker wasn’t just ahead of her time—she was outside it. Born in 1895 and a graduate of Howard University Academy, she had the scientific mind and fierce determination it took to challenge both the elements and the era’s biases. Her patented invention proposed using natural gas to warm entire homes through thermostats and ductwork—a visionary concept that laid the groundwork for the central heating systems we use today. Though her design wasn’t adopted immediately, it broke open a path that engineers would follow for generations. In an age when Black inventors—especially women—were often silenced or erased, Parker’s bold solution made homes safer, cleaner, and more livable. She didn’t just tame winter. She changed the rhythm of everyday life. So when the snow piles high and you hear the quiet hum of warmth moving through your home, think of Alice H. Parker—a woman who saw past the frost and sparked a comfort revolution from the hearth outward.

George Carruthers helped humanity see the universe in a new way, yet too few people know a Black scientist put one of the first telescopes on the Moon. George Carruthers gave science a way to see what the human eye never could. His far ultraviolet camera and spectrograph opened a hidden universe, making it possible to study Earth’s upper atmosphere, stars, nebulae, and gases in interstellar space through wavelengths blocked from ordinary view. That achievement was not small, and it was not accidental. It came from a Black scientist whose work expanded humanity’s understanding of both our own planet and the wider cosmos at a time when Black brilliance in advanced science was far too often overlooked. Carruthers developed the instrument while working at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. He received a patent in 1969 for the Far Ultraviolet Electrographic Camera, a device designed to detect short-wavelength electromagnetic radiation that had remained difficult to capture with earlier tools. That patent mattered because it was more than a technical success. It was a Black inventor claiming space in one of the most demanding scientific frontiers in the country. The power of his invention became even clearer a few years later. In 1972, astronauts on Apollo 16 deployed Carruthers’s far ultraviolet camera and spectrograph on the lunar surface, making it the first observatory placed on the Moon. That detail alone should place his name much higher in public memory. A Black scientist helped put a new scientific eye on the Moon, and that eye was built to gather information no ordinary camera could see. The instrument was used to capture ultraviolet images and spectra of Earth’s upper atmosphere, auroras, nebulae, and star fields. It also helped scientists study interstellar hydrogen and other gases in space, giving researchers new evidence about the composition and behavior of the universe. That is what makes Carruthers’s story so powerful from a Black perspective. He was not simply participating in science. He was changing what science could observe at all. There is something deeply moving about that. Black history is full of people who had to create new tools just to make the world acknowledge what had always been there. Carruthers did that in the language of optics, physics, and engineering. He helped scientists see an invisible layer of reality, and in doing so, he joined a long Black tradition of turning insight into transformation. His work also reminds us that Black achievement cannot be boxed into one narrow category. Carruthers was an inventor, an astrophysicist, and an engineer whose work connected laboratory precision to space exploration at the highest level. The public often remembers rockets, astronauts, and moonwalks first. But behind those headline moments were minds like his, shaping the instruments that made discovery possible.

Elijah J. McCoy was born on May 2, 1844, in Colchester, Ontario Canada to parents who escaped slavery via the Underground Railroad—a story rooted in resilience that would later mirror his own persistence. Showing early mechanical aptitude, McCoy was sent as a teenager to Edinburgh, Scotland where he completed a formal apprenticeship in mechanical engineering. At a time when most Black men in North America were denied access to advanced technical education, McCoy returned with elite training that placed him ahead of his era. Despite his credentials, McCoy faced systemic barriers upon settling in Detroit, where he could not secure work as an engineer. Instead, he took a position as a fireman and oiler on the Michigan Central Railroad. There, he encountered a costly inefficiency: steam engines had to be stopped frequently for manual lubrication, slowing operations and increasing wear. Where others saw routine labor, McCoy saw a solvable engineering failure—and he went to work. In 1872, McCoy delivered a breakthrough that would redefine industrial efficiency: the automatic lubricator, a device that allowed machinery to be oiled continuously while in motion. This invention eliminated the need for constant stops, dramatically improving performance, safety, and longevity across railroads and factories. Its reliability was so respected that operators reportedly demanded “the real McCoy,” seeking out his authentic design over inferior imitations—a testament to precision engineering that set a new standard. Over the course of his career, McCoy secured more than 50 patents, most centered on lubrication systems that became essential to the Industrial Revolution’s infrastructure. His work powered trains, factories, and global commerce, transforming fatigue-driven maintenance into seamless, continuous operation. Elijah J. McCoy didn’t just invent a device—he engineered efficiency into the backbone of modern industry, leaving a legacy that still moves the world today. https://lnkd.in/epv-jf2k https://lnkd.in/efpjxpr6 https://lnkd.in/ekUrGxbw https://lnkd.in/eAsCGVkR

Dr. Charles R. Drew (1904–1950) was a pioneering African American physician, surgeon, and medical researcher best known as the “father of the modern blood bank.” Here’s what he contributed: Blood Storage & Transfusion: Before Drew’s work, blood could not be stored for long periods because whole blood would spoil quickly. He discovered that separating plasma (the liquid portion) from red blood cells allowed blood to be stored much longer and safely re-transfused. Plasma could also be dried and reconstituted, making it easier to transport. World War II Programs: In 1940–41, he organized and led the “Blood for Britain” project, which sent life-saving plasma to soldiers and civilians during the war. His system became the model for large-scale blood banks. Standardized Procedures: He developed standardized methods for the collection, processing, storage, and distribution of blood and plasma. These procedures became the foundation of the American Red Cross Blood Bank. Legacy: Though he resigned from the Red Cross in protest of their policy at the time of segregating blood donations by race (a policy later dropped), his innovations permanently changed medicine, saving countless lives worldwide.