Kizzmekia “Kizzy” Shanta Corbett is an American viral immunologist. Corbett was the scientific lead of a COVID-19 Team with research efforts aimed at COVID-19 vaccines. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Corbett started working on a vaccine to protect people from coronavirus disease. Recognizing that the virus was similar to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus, Corbett’s team utilized previous knowledge of optimal coronavirus proteins to tackle COVID-19 To manufacture and test the COVID-19 vaccine Corbett’s team partnered with Moderna, a biotechnology company. In December 2020, the(NIAID) Institute’s Director, Anthony Fauci said: “Kizzy is an African American scientist who is right at the forefront of the development of the vaccine.” In the Time’s profile, Fauci wrote that Corbett has “been central to the development of the Moderna mRNA vaccine and the Eli Lilly therapeutic monoclonal antibody that were first to enter clinical trials in the U.S.” and that “her work will have a substantial impact on ending the worst respiratory-disease pandemic in more than 100 years.”
Corbett received a PhD in microbiology and immunology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is an Assistant Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Shutzer Assistant Professor at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute since June 2021. Corbett is among a cohort of recent University Maryland Baltimore County graduates who have risen to prominence in biomedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson is an African-American scientist and astrophysicist. He is the director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. Since 2006, he has hosted PBS’s educational television show NOVA Science NOW. Dr. Tyson has written, and continues to write for the public. He was appointed by President George W Bush to serve on several commissions. He was awarded the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal, the highest civilian honor bestowed by NASA. In addition to dozens of professional publications.
Dr. Patricia Bath made enormous contributions to the field of ophthalmology and she was passionate about making eye-care globally accessible. Dr. Bath’s belief that eye-care is a fundamental human right led her to create an approach she called community ophthalmology, “a discipline promoting eye health and blindness prevention through programs utilizing methodologies of public health, community medicine, and ophthalmology.” Dr. Bath wanted to make eye-care available to everyone, not just those who are able to afford treatment. The method Dr. Bath developed for removing cataracts with a laser has helped save the sight of millions of people around the world. Dr. Bath, who passed away in 2019, was an ophthalmologist, inventor and academic. She developed multiple patents in the treatment of cataracts.
