Alice Ball

Alice Ball was an American chemist who was the first woman and first African American woman to receive a master’s degree from the University of Hawaii, as well as the university’s first female and African American chemistry professor. She is known for having created the “Ball Method” which was used to treat leprosy. Before her work was published, it was actually stolen and published by a chemist named Arthur L. Dean. Credit was given to her years later by the doctor who contacted her for the work on leprosy.