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Vaneica Young
Dr. Vaneica Young is noted for being the first African-American female to earn tenure and also retire from a 'Top 50' Research University in the field of chemistry.

Early life
Dr. Vaneica Young cites her mother as an early role model. Although Young's mother never went to college, she had an interest in physics and taught her daughter Vaneica arithmetic before she even began studying it in school. In junior high school, she convinced her parents to get her a chemistry set, and "her father...regretted it after she filled the house with hydrogen sulfide." Her curiosity in science and math continued and in the ninth grade, Vaneica purchased a slide rule with her own savings and taught herself how to use it. During high school, she continued to have strong female role models, including three female math teachers, one of whom was African-American. Her early interests in math and chemistry continued throughout her career.

Education & Career
Young chose to major in both mathematics and chemistry, receiving her B.A. degrees from the University of Kansas in 1969. She went on to receive a Master's degree in physical chemistry in 1972, and a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry in 1976, both from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Dr. Young completed a two-year postdoctoral position at Purdue University working with Nicholas Winograd prior to beginning her first faculty position at Texas A&M University.

She then moved to the University of Florida in Gainesville in 1984 where she became the first African-American woman to earn tenure in a chemistry department at a Top 50 research university. She was a professor at the Unviersity of Florida for 30 years specializing in analytical and surface chemistries, particularly use of Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) and Ion scattering spectroscopy (ISS), and chemical education. According to Research Gate, Dr. Young published 94 articles during her career. When she retired in 2014, Dr. Vaneica Young became the first African-American female to not only receive tenure in a chemistry department from a Top 50 research university, but also retire from one. She is now an Associate Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at the University of Florida.