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.
Elena Cornaro Piscopia (1646-1684) was the first woman to receive a doctorate. She was awarded a doctorate in philosophy by the University of Padua in 1682.   The second woâ¦man to receive a doctorate was Laura Bassi Verati, who was awarded a doctorate of philosophy by the University of Bologna in 1732.