Heritage Month Scientist Spotlights

Daniel Keel began his military career when he was drafted into World War II in 1943. He knew he wanted to become a pilot, but the competition, especially for people of color, was incredibly steep. More than 15,000 Black men took the exam to become a pilot, but only 10 percent of those were chosen to go to Tuskegee Institute in Alabama — Keel among them. He would go on to become one of five distinguished Triple-Rated Airmen, becoming an accomplished bomber, navigator, and Red Tail pilot.

However, stiff competition wasn’t Daniel Keel’s biggest obstacle. The Tuskegee Airmen were fighting two wars: WWII and racism. His group was told that they were not allowed in the officer’s club, could not eat in the officer’s cafeteria, could not sit in the officer’s section at the movies and had to ride in the back of the bus.

In one instance, Keel and a group of his fellow officers arrived at the cadet mess hall for lunch and had to wait for all of the white soldiers to be fed first. As more time passed, he noticed that his group wasn’t getting served, but anytime white cadets came in, they got food right away.

Not one to take this matter lying down, he and his group wrote a letter to the general detailing the blatant racial discrimination. The general spoke up and told the officers that Keel and his group were officers in the United States Air Force and would be treated with the same respect, privileges, and duties as any officers on the base.

“The Tuskegee Airmen showed the world that if Black men were given the opportunity, we could do the job as well as anyone else. I think we played a big role in President Truman desegregating the military in 1948,” shares Keel.

When Keel’s service to the military was complete, he hoped to take his new skillset as a pilot and navigator back home and continue flying. He obtained a Commercial Multi-Engine Pilot’s License. However, despite his qualifications, commercial airlines refused to integrate, and Black pilots weren’t hired until the 1960s.

Instead, Mr. Keel, together with his wife Barbara, raised eight children in Massachusetts while becoming a Master Electrician and prominent commercial contractor until his retirement to Central Florida in 1998.

Now at age 100, Daniel Keel is still an advocate for equal rights and education in the community. His advice for aspiring military pilots: “Get yourself a good education and work hard. Nothing is given to you for free.”

Orlando Science Center is proud to work with Mr. Keel. Over the years, he has helped with the installation of the Red Tail Monument which stands in Loch Haven Park and was the guest of honor at our Annual Veteran’s Day WreathLaying Ceremony sponsored by Lockheed Martin. Mr. Keel is a national hero and we are honored to call him our friend. To learn more click here.

Women have historically been underrepresented in STEM fields, so we are taking this opportunity to highlight some incredible scientists from throughout history. These women broke barriers and overcame obstacles, clearing the way for others to follow in their footsteps.

Did you know that women receive only about 5 percent of all patents? Women remain a largely overlooked pool of scientific knowledge. But Gertrude Elion began to pave the way for change when she became the first woman inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) in 1991.

Elion was a pioneer in the development of drugs to combat leukemia, septic shock, and many others. With George Hitchings her research partner, Elion employed what is now known as rational drug design, intentionally creating molecules that would interfere with the replication process of DNA, stopping cell reproduction in its tracks. This was extraordinary science for the 1940s, especially because much was still unknown about DNA, including the double-helix structure. The discovery paved the way for the creation of treatments for leukemia, gout, malaria, herpes, and many other diseases.

Known sometimes as the “First Lady of Physics” or the “Queen of Nuclear Research,” Chien-Shiung Wu made extraordinary contributions to the field of physics. For a time, she worked on enriching uranium ore for the Manhattan Project, the research and development project that created the first nuclear weapons. After that, she began extensively researching beta decay, a form of radioactivity in which a proton turns into a neutron by emitting a beta particle (an electron or positron). She was the first to observe that these shedding particles have a preferred direction of emission, which violates the principle of parity. This principle states that it is impossible to distinguish direction (right from left, clockwise from counterclockwise, etc.) in any particle interaction.

It was a discovery worthy of a Nobel Prize in Physics – except that it wasn’t awarded to Wu. The Nobel Prize in 1957 went to Chen Ning Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee, two men whose theory was proved by Wu’s experiment. They even credited Wu in their acceptance speech! Wu did, however, become the first recipient of the Wolf Prize in Physics in 1978. The Wolf Prize is often regarded as the most prestigious award in each scientific discipline after the Nobel Prize.

In the scientific world, it is generally frowned upon to name newly discovered species after yourself. That’s why none of the 22 species of plankton discovered by scientist Ángeles Alvariño (her preferred moniker) are named after her. Known as a world-renowned expert on zooplankton, Alvariño studied all over the world, including Spain, Great Britain, the United States, Mexico, and even Antarctica.

Alvariño began as an educator, teaching for seven years before beginning her research career. While living in Madrid and working for the Department of Sea Fisheries, Alvariño applied to do research with the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (SIO) - but legally, women were forbidden from boarding Spanish Navy vessels. The archaic law had been written in the 1700s, but it was technically still in effect. Even the SIO did not admit women at the time. Alvariño was undeterred; in 1950, she was accepted to the SIO thanks to her extensive academic credentials and research acumen. She became so well-known in the field that two species were named for her by other scientists: Aidanosagitta alvarinoae (an arrow-worm) and Lizzia alvarinoae (a hydrozoan). More than that, seven years after her death, the SIO launched a new research vessel: the Ángeles Alvariño.