Famous Black Mathematician Essay

1094 Words5 Pages

Famous Black Mathematicians Throughout history it has been several famous African-American mathematicians that had contributed to this country by using math and math concepts. Ms. Annie Easley was one of those mathematicians and she was born in Birmingham, Alabama on April 23, 1933 to the parents of Samuel Bird Easley and Mary Hoover (Mills, 2015). Ms. Easley and her brother who were approximately six years older than her was raised by their single mother Mary from the time Ms. Easley was in fifth grade and throughout her high school years(Mills, 2015). Ms. Easley was enrolled in Birmingham’s parochial school where she was the school valedictorian of her graduating class. Ms. Easley became interested in mathematicians at a young age and she loved it (para. 1). Ms. Easley did think about becoming a nurse or a teacher during this time because she believed those was the only career choices for most African-American women (para.1). Ms. Easley realized that becoming a teacher was not in her plans. So, she decided to become a pharmacist and this was the profession that jumped started her career (Mills, 2015). During this profession as a pharmacist Ms. Easley became known for her computer science skills (para. 2). Shortly after Ms. Easley moved …show more content…

Easley attended Cleveland University where she earned her Bachelor of Science in Mathematics, while she was attending college she told her classmates about her work at NASA’s and inspired several females and minority classmates about considering a field in STEM careers during her employment at NACA (Mills, 2015). During this timeframe NACA became NASA and Ms. Easley began to continue her career and soon after became one the first African –American woman in her specialty field as a computer scientist for NASA (para. 2). Ms. Easley job required her to work on certain code and software that would resolve the different power technology and disclosure caused by the wind, solar and energy projects (Mills,