Since she was a young girl, chemist Cynthia Chapple has always enjoyed and excelled at math and science. But despite her talent, her early educational experiences in these subjects were tainted by feelings of isolation and a vague sense that she didn’t belong.
At age 11, the Chicago native first ventured outside her community to attend a math program at the University of Illinois Chicago. “Not only was I one of very few Black girls, I was one of very few Black students,” Chapple recalls. She didn’t yet have words for the racial and socioeconomic divide she encountered there, but she knew it felt different.
Fast forward to Chapple’s high school years: Her family had moved to Indiana, and the 15-year-old was accepted into a biology program at Purdue University, where her older sister was studying to be a nurse. This time, Chapple was the only Black student. Feeling out of place, she never went back—instead, she wandered Purdue’s campus each morning when her sister dropped her off.