An element is a chemical substance made up of a particular kind of atom and hence cannot be broken down or transformed by a chemical reaction into a different element, though it can be transmuted into another element through a nuclear reaction.
Almost 40 years separate Shirley Ann Jackson's achievement, as the first African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in theoretical high energy physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Jedidah Isler, the first African-American woman to receive a Ph.D. in Astrophysics from Yale.
1941 Edward Vernon Williams becomes the first African American to graduate from the University of Kansas Medical School. 1942 Marguerite Thomas Williams becomes the first Black person in the U.S. to earn a Ph.D. in Geology (The Catholic University of America). 1943 Euphemia Lofton Haynes becomes the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in Mathematics (The Catholic University of America).