By Leigh Ann Gardner (MSTP Sr. Grants Manager)
In February, we will recognize contributions to science and medicine made by African Americans. You can learn more about Black History Month here.
February 2: Nurse and inventor Marie van Brittan Brown died on February 2, 1999. She and her husband, Albert L. Brown, an electronics technician, filed a patent for an audio-visual home security system in 1966 which was revolutionary in what it proposed. Concerned about being home alone at night, Marie and Albert invented a security system which used 4 peepholes, a camera, television monitors, and two-way microphones. It also included a closed-circuit television system which became known as CCTV. Their invention allowed a camera to take images of people and also had a two-way microphone to communicate with those outside the home. In 1969, the patent was granted to Marie and Albert; however, the invention they proposed never went into large-scale production (due to cost). However, this patent and invention was the basis for many other home security inventions, and the patent has been cited in more than 30 other patent applications. Many places, such as office buildings and banks, use a security system based on this invention. Also, Marie and Albert are credited with inventing the concept of CCTV, which is used widely to this day. You can learn more about Marie and Albert here and here. You can see the patent application and illustrations here.
February 8: Data scientist and inventor Valerie Thomas, responsible for inventing an illusion transmitter, was born on February 8, 1943, in Maryland. She was one of two women majoring in physics at Morgan State University in the early 1960s, and she received her physics degree in 1964. She began working for NASA in 1964 as a data analyst and participated in (and later oversaw) the Landsat program, which visualizes Earth from space, largely with satellite imagery. A science exhibition in 1976 led her to research how to invent a device that could transmit realistic, three-dimensional images, using concave mirrors. In 1980, she received a patent for the illusion transmitter, and NASA continues to use this technology. In recent years, researchers have looked at how this transmitter could be used for surgeons to look inside the human body. Thomas retired from NASA in 1995 but continued to mentor young people in science. In 2018, she was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame You can learn more about Thomas here and here
February 19: Nurse and educator Mary Elizabeth Carnegie, who also established the first baccalaureate nursing program at Hampton University, was born on April 19, 1916, in Baltimore, Maryland. After completing the Lincoln Hospital School for Nurses in the Bronx in 1937, Carnegie worked as a nurse at the Veterans Hospital in Tuskegee, Alabama. She then moved to Washington, DC to nurse at the Freedmen’s Hospital. She received a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the West Virginia State College in 1942. After establishing a nursing program at Hampton University, she was appointed dean of the nursing program at Florida A&M. While there, she worked to help other minority nurses advance in the field and worked tirelessly to break down racial barriers for nurses in Florida. She was the first African American to serve on the Florida State Nurses Association Board of Directors. Later in her career, she served as an editor for a number of nursing journals, such as Nursing Research and the American Journal of Nursing. She also served as the President of the American Academy of Nursing. You can learn more about her work and life here and here.
February 24: Dr. Alvin F. Poussaint, known for his research on the impact of racism in the African American community, died on February 24, 2025. Born in May 1934 in New York to Haitian immigrant parents, Poussaint attended Stuyvesant High School, then predominantly white, and then Columbia University. After graduating from Columbia University with a degree in pharmacology in 1956, he attended Cornell Medical School, where he was the only African American admitted that year. His experiences with racism at Stuyvesant Hight School, Columbia, and Cornell fueled his research on the impact of racial bias on the mental health of African Americans. Following residency at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, where he served as chief resident, Poussaint went to Jackson, Mississippi, in 1965, where he served as the Southern Field Director of the Medical Committee for Human Rights. Following time there and at Tufts, Poussaint went to Harvard Medical School, where he spent many years, working to decrease health disparities and trying to bring more underserved populations into medicine. He was the author of several books on the impact of racism on African Americans. You can learn more about Poussaint’s life and work here and here.