Evelynn M. Hammonds facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Evelynn M. Hammonds
Hammonds in 2017
Born	(1953-01-02) January 2, 1953 (age 71) Atlanta, Georgia, US
Education	Harvard University Massachusetts Institute of Technology Spelman College Georgia Institute of Technology
Occupation	Professor, scholar
Title	Barbara Gutmann Rosenkrantz Professor of the History of Science and Professor of African and African-American Studies
Scientific career
Institutions	Harvard University

Evelynn Maxine Hammonds (born 1953) is an American feminist and scholar. She is the Barbara Gutmann Rosenkrantz Professor of the History of Science and Professor of African and African-American Studies at Harvard University, and former Dean of Harvard College. The intersections of race, gender, science and medicine are prominent research topics across her published works. Hammonds received degrees in engineering and physics. Before getting her PhD in the History of Science at Harvard, she was a computer programmer. She began her teaching career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, later moving to Harvard. In 2008, Hammonds was appointed dean, the first African-American and the first woman to head the college. She returned to full-time teaching in 2013.

Early life and education

Hammonds was born in Atlanta, Georgia on January 2, 1953 to Evelyn Baker Hammonds and William Hammonds Jr. Her mother was a schoolteacher, and her father was a postal worker. Her father aspired to become an engineer, after studying chemistry and mathematics, but was unable to attend the segregated Georgia Institute of Technology. Evelynn M. Hammonds became interested in history and science as a student at Collier Heights Elementary School in Atlanta and this interest was fostered by an early exposure to science through her parents. Her high school education was disrupted by integration and discrimination, forcing her to switch from Charles Lincoln Harper High School to Daniel McLaughlin Therrell High School in 1967. After experiencing discrimination from students and teachers, she completed her secondary education at Southwest High School.

A National Merit Scholar, Hammonds attended Spelman College where she enrolled in a joint engineering program with Georgia Institute of Technology. In 1976 she graduated from both universities with degrees in Physics and Electrical Engineering respectively. While she was an undergraduate, she spent two summers working at Bell Labs through a research fellowship program that recruited minorities in the sciences. The program provided structured mentorship and placement within a lab group, and she recalls, "... it was my first exposure to the world of big science. It had a profound effect on me, and I really wanted to do well." It was during her work here that she was first published, and she became friends with Cecilia Conrad. Conrad took Hammonds up to Boston, as Conrad was a student at Wellesley College at the time, and they visited the MIT campus together which impressed Hammonds and inspired her. Then, because of the Society of Physics Students at Spelman College, Hammond was introduced to Shirley Ann Jackson and Ronald McNair. She recalls that Jackson was, "the first black woman I ever met who was a physicist, and ... she went to MIT so that's how I pretty much decided that [MIT] was the only place I wanted to go."

Following graduation, she attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for a PhD program but left the course of study early in 1980, earning a master's degree in physics. Upon leaving academia, she began a five-year career as a software engineer, but found this to be unchallenging and returned to Harvard University. In 1993, she graduated with a PhD in the History of Science.

Career

Upon graduation from Harvard, Hammonds was invited to teach at MIT. While she was there, she was the founding director of MIT's center for the Study of Diversity in Science, Technology, and Medicine. She also helped organize the first national academic conference for black female scholars, Black Women in the Academy: Defending Our Name 1894-1994 a national conference convened at MIT in 1994 to address historical and contemporary issues faced by African-American women in academia.

In 2002, she returned to Harvard and joined as a professor in the departments of the History of Science and of African and African-American Studies. She received the title of Dean at Harvard College in 2008 and was the 4th black woman to receive tenure within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University. Before this, Hammonds had served as the first senior vice provost for Harvard's Faculty Development and Diversity.

Research

Hammonds' research focuses on the intersection of science, medicine, and race. Many of her works analyze gender and races in the perspective of science and medicine. She is concerned with how science examines human variation through race. Hammonds mainly studies the time period of the 17th century to present while focusing on history of diseases and African-American feminism.

In 1995, Hammonds, together with other black feminists including Angela Davis, Barbara Ransby and Kimberlé Crenshaw, formed an alliance called the "African American Agenda 2000" to oppose Louis Farrakhan's Million Man March, out of concern that it would further black male sexism.

Notable publications

• Childhood's Deadly Scourge: The Campaign to Control Diphtheria in New York City, 1880 – 1930 (1999, Johns Hopkins University Press)
• The Nature of Difference: Sciences of Race in the United States from Jefferson to Genomics (2008, MIT Press)
• The Harvard Sampler: Liberal Education for the Twenty-first Century (2011, Harvard University Press)
• The Dilemma of Classification: The Past in the Present (2011, Rutgers University Press)

Honors and distinctions

• Namesake of the Harvard LGBTQ Students at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Association's "Evelynn Hammonds Award for Exceptional Service to BGLTQ+ Inclusion", 2021
• Elected member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 2021
• Election to the Bates College Board of Trustees, 2018
• Appointment to the Committee on Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2017
• History of Science Society Distinguished Lecturer, 2016
• Founder's Award, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice, 2014
• Woman of Courage and Conviction Award, Greater Boston Chapter of the National Council of Negro Women, 2014
• Spelman College Ida B. Wells-Barnett Distinguished Lecturer, 2013
• Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Bates College, 2011
• Association for Women in Science Fellow, 2008
• Barbara Gutmann Rosenkrantz Professorship at Harvard University, 2007
• Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Spelman College, 2004
• Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer, 2003–05