author
Alice A. Ball
1892–1916
A brilliant young chemist whose work helped create the first effective treatment for Hansen’s disease, she achieved more before age 25 than many do in a lifetime. Her story is one of scientific skill, persistence, and recognition long overdue.
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About the author
Born in Seattle in 1892, Alice Augusta Ball became a gifted chemist at a remarkably young age. She studied pharmaceutical chemistry and pharmacy at the University of Washington, then went on to the College of Hawaii, where she became the first woman and the first Black person to earn a master’s degree in chemistry there.
While working in Hawaiʻi, she collaborated on a way to make chaulmoogra oil usable as an injectable treatment for Hansen’s disease, then commonly called leprosy. The technique became known as the Ball Method and was the most effective treatment of its kind until newer drugs arrived decades later.
Ball died in 1916, only 24 years old, and her contribution was not fully credited for many years. Today she is remembered as a pioneering Black American scientist whose work changed lives and whose legacy continues to grow.