Lydia Villa-Komaroff, born into a Mexican family living in New Mexico in 1947, years after Rebecca Lee Crumpler faced similar challenges in becoming a physician. She was forced out of her chemistry major, told than women did not belong in that field. She applied to John Hopkins University to complete her new biology major but was not accepted because she was female. After graduating from Goucher College, she moved on to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before completing her Ph.D. in cell biology, she founded the Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science in 1973 to help with the lack of those populations in her field. Three years after getting her PhD, she was the first author of the report that showed bacteria could be used to make proinsulin, a hugely important discovery. Working her way up, she became the Vice President for Research at Northwestern University in 1996, and then Vice President for Research and Chief Operating officer at the Whitehead Institute. More recently she became the…show more content… It is vital to have equality in medicine to improve health care and to continue the long fight towards the goal of racial and gender equality. The United States has a long history of discrimination, seen in slavery, the forced sterilization of women of color, particularly in North Carolina in the late 20th century, and the continued and often fatal police brutality towards African American men. As time moves on, political activism continues, and more programs and committees continue to receive funding, equality in the professional world of medicine, as well as racial and gender equality in the United States, will hopefully become a
