Lloyd Noel Ferguson

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Lloyd Noel Ferguson was born in 1918 in Oakland, California, and developed an early passion for chemistry through backyard experiments. He earned a B.S. in 1940 and Ph.D. in 1943 from UC Berkeley, becoming the first African American to receive a chemistry doctorate there while working on oxygen-release projects with Nobel Laureate Melvin Calvin. His career included teaching at Howard University, where he established the first Ph.D. program in chemistry at an HBCU, and later at California State University, Los Angeles, from 1965 until retirement in 1986. He authored seven textbooks, over 50 research papers on organic chemistry and biochemistry, and co-founded the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers in 1972. No documented connection to Miami or South Florida exists in available records. He passed away in 2011 in California.