GG of the Week: Dr. Maya Angelou

Dr. Maya Angelou is one of the most renowned and influential voices of our time. Hailed as a global renaissance woman, Dr. Angelou is a celebrated poet, memoirist, novelist, educator, dramatist, producer, actress, historian, filmmaker, and civil rights activist.

Born on April 4th, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, Dr. Angelou was raised in St. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas. In Stamps, Dr. Angelou experienced the brutality of racial discrimination, but she also absorbed the unshakable faith and values of traditional African-American family, community, and culture.

As a teenager, Dr. Angelou’s love for the arts won her a scholarship to study dance and drama at San Francisco’s Labor School. At 14, she dropped out to become San Francisco’s first African-American female cable car conductor. She later finished high school, giving birth to her son, Guy, a few weeks after graduation. As a young single mother, she supported her son by working as a waitress and cook, however her passion for music, dance, performance, and poetry would soon take center stage.

In 1954 and 1955, Dr. Angelou toured Europe with a production of the opera Porgy and Bess. She studied modern dance with Martha Graham, danced with Alvin Ailey on television variety shows and, in 1957, recorded her first album, Calypso Lady. In 1958, she moved to New York, where she joined the Harlem Writers Guild, acted in the historic Off-Broadway production of Jean Genet's The Blacks and wrote and performed Cabaret for Freedom.

In 1960, Dr. Angelou moved to Cairo, Egypt where she served as editor of the English language weekly The Arab Observer. The next year, she moved to Ghana where she taught at the University of Ghana's School of Music and Drama, worked as feature editor for The African Review and wrote for The Ghanaian Times.

During her years abroad, Dr. Angelou read and studied voraciously, mastering French, Spanish, Italian, Arabic and the West African language Fanti. While in Ghana, she met with Malcolm X and, in 1964, returned to America to help him build his new Organization of African American Unity.

Shortly after her arrival in the United States, Malcolm X was assassinated, and the organization dissolved. Soon after X's assassination, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. asked Dr. Angelou to serve as Northern Coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. King's assassination, falling on her birthday in 1968, left her devastated.

With the guidance of her friend, the novelist James Baldwin, she began work on the book that would become I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Published in 1970, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was published to international acclaim and enormous popular success. The list of her published verse, non-fiction, and fiction now includes more than 30 bestselling titles.

A trailblazer in film and television, Dr. Angelou wrote the screenplay and composed the score for the 1972 film Georgia, Georgia. Her script, the first by an African American woman ever to be filmed, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

She continues to appear on television and in films including the landmark television adaptation of Alex Haley's Roots (1977) and John Singleton's Poetic Justice (1993). In 1996, she directed her first feature film, Down in the Delta. In 2008, she composed poetry for and narrated the award-winning documentary The Black Candle, directed by M.K. Asante, Jr.

Dr. Angelou has served on two presidential committees, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Arts in 2000, the Lincoln Medal in 2008, and has received 3 Grammy Awards. President Clinton requested that she compose a poem to read at his inauguration in 1993. Dr. Angelou's reading of her poem "On the Pulse of the Morning" was broadcast live around the world.

Dr. Angelou has received over 30 honorary degrees and is Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University.

Dr. Angelou’s words and actions continue to stir our souls, energize our bodies, liberate our minds, and heal our hearts.

from http://mayaangelou.com/bio/

GG of the Week: Dr. Esther Pearson

Dr. Esther Pearson
Director, Internet Applications Support Services
GTE Internetworking
Fields: Software Engineering
Specialty: Networking
Nominated by: Tiffani Pearson

Excerpt from nomination: Esther Pearson has assisted thousands of youth, specifically African-American and Latina youths, to participate in math, science and technology programs and careers. Dr. Pearson founded Science, Technology and Engineering Pre-College Studies (STEPS) Program; and developed/copyrighted the STEPS Model of Educational Objectives.

Dr. Pearson has worked in New England for 15 years setting up and administrating science and technology programs. This work has significantly impacted the systematic acceptance from pre-college science and technology programs at numerous universities in New England.

Dr. Pearson established and directed a program with the American Electronic Association, an organization of 250 CEOs in New England that manage scientific-based corporations, to incorporate pre-college math, science and technology Saturday programs, and mentoring programs throughout New England. This program resulted in thousands of New England students receiving exposure to scientific and technical careers.

She has been working in the field of engineering for 22 years. During this time she has held positions of senior software engineer through engineering director. During this time, she has completed a bachelor's in applied science in electrical engineering from Youngstown State University; a master's in engineering management from Western New England College and a doctorate in mathematics and science education from the University of Massachusetts. With this experience, Dr. Pearson has mentored numerous women and developed math, science and technology enrichment programs for youths in grades 3 - 12. These programs have been for the gifted, as well as incarcerated teenage girls. All of this is done on a volunteer basis and on her personal time.

Dr. Pearson has dedicated her entire adult life to motivating girls, women and minorities to take science/technology classes, and seek careers in the scientific areas. She works tirelessly in this effort on a volunteer basis.

To view more, please visit: http://www.witi.com/center/witimuseum/womeninsciencet/1998/062398.shtml

GG of the Week: Alexa I. Canady

Alexa I. Canady

Alexa Canady was born on November 7, 1950. She is an African-American Neurosurgeon.

Canady was the first Woman and First African American to become a Neurosurgeon in America. From Lansing Michigan, Alexa Irene Canady is the daughter of Elizabeth Hortense (Golden) Canady and Clinton Canady Jr. Her father was a graduate of the School of Dentistry of Meharry Medical College, practicing in Lansing. Her mother was a graduate of Fiasco University was active for years in civic affairs of Lansing. She also served as national president of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.

Young Canady and her brother grew up outside Lansing and were the only two Black students in the entire school. Despite the obstacles, Canady was an exceptional student and named a National Achievement Scholar in 1967. She attended the University of Michigan, getting her BS, degree in 1971. After this came the University of Michigan, Medical School, and her M.D. cum laude in 1975. Canady’s Interned at Yale’s New Hane Hospital from 1975 to 1976, and an example of her non-recognition due to being Black and a woman came on her first day of her residency at Yale New Hane Hospital. She was appointed as first female and first black to a residency in neurosurgery. As she began making her rounds a hospital administrator referred to her as "the new equal-opportunity package." Despite the remark, Dr. Canady viewed her accomplishment as a double achievement for herself and both women and African Americans.

From there she went to the University of Minnesota in neurosurgery, from 1976 to 1981. She also worked at the University of Pennsylvania Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Ped Neurosurg from 1981-82. Currently, Canady is the director of neurosurgery at Children's Hospital in Detroit and a clinical associate professor at Wayne State University. Her Areas of Expertise are Craniofacial Abnormalities, Epilepsy, Hydrocephalus, Pediatric Neurosurgery, and Tumors of Spinal Cord and Brain. She has also added to special research topics such as assisting in the development of neuroendoscopic equipment, evaluating programmable pressure change valves in hydrocephalus, head injury, hydrocephalus and shunts, neuroendoscopy, and pregnancy complications of shunts.

Besides Dr. Canady's position as the director of pediatric neurosurgery, she also works to change the perspective of how African Americans both how patients and physicians are perceived. She claims the major medical problem for Blacks stems from the scarcity of research targeting their specific health concerns and needs. Canady believes the issues will be better addressed now that medical schools are diversifying their student bodies and their faculties.

In 1975, Canady was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha Honorary Medical Society. In 1983, she was Teacher of the Year, Children’s Hospital of Michigan, and in 1991, Dr. Canady was honored as Alumni, University of Michigan.

Dr. Canady holds two honorary degrees: a doctorate of humane letters from the University of Detroit-Mercy, awarded in 1997, and a doctor of science degree from the University of Southern Connecticut, awarded in 1999. She received the Children’s Hospital of Michigan’s Teacher of the Year award in 1984, and was inducted into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame in 1989. In 1993, she received the American Medical Women’s Association President’s Award and in 1994 the Distinguished Service Award from Wayne State University Medical School. In 2002, the Detroit News named her Michiganer of the Year.

Dr. Canady is now retired and has more time to spend with her husband, and on working to change the view and assumptions about black patients and black medical personnel. She claims the major medical problem for blacks stems from the scarcity of research targeting their specific health concerns and needs.

Information originally from:
http://www.aaregistry.com/detail.php?id=2824