Percy Julian

Percy Julian (b. 1899 – d. 1975) was a pioneering African-American chemist famous not only for his discovery of useful chemicals from plants that advanced modern medicine, but also for overcoming racial discrimination throughout much of his life. Julian received his undergraduate degree from DePauw University in Indiana, an MS from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and his PhD from the University of Vienna in Austria. After an academic career filed with both tribulations and brilliant research accomplishments, Julian spent much of his life as a researcher for pharmaceutical companies, ultimately founding his own research and production company, Julian Laboratories. Aside from personally breaking racial barriers in the course of his career, he was also an outspoken advocate for civil rights. Among his many path-breaking research accomplishments, the work he conducted was foundational in revolutionizing synthesis of human hormones from plant sources, a critical part of many medical processes today.