Promega has a tradition of naming its new buildings after notable scientists. The building I work in is named for Michael Faraday who was among the first to describe electromagnetism in the 19th century. He is also notable because he had relatively little formal education. One of our manufacturing buildings in named after Rosalind Franklin, whose X-ray crystallography was essential to confirm the double helix model of DNA. Although she collected the physical data central to this model, Watson and Crick did embarrassingly little to acknowledge her contribution. Dr. Franklin died of ovarian cancer at the age of 38.
As we watch Promega’s new cGMP building grow larger and more complete every day, the administration has reached out to us employees to suggest names. I began to research female scientists, particularly African Americans or Latinas, that should have this type of recognition. This search proved to be (not surprisingly) difficult, so I decided to think outside of the box. Continue reading “Outside the Box: African American Innovators”
