Dr. Lynda Marie Jordon
Researcher, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University

Lynda Jordon grew up in a dangerous low-income housing project in Boston. Lynda Jordon had to learn about responsibility very early. Her mother was a single mother on welfare who consulted Lynda on how to budget their income since she was the oldest of her three daughters. When Lynda was 11, her mother remarried a man with several children and Lynda turned towards delinquent behavior.

Lynda's life changed forever when trying to flee authority upon being caught smoking cigarettes in her school bathroom. Lynda escaped into a school auditorium where she heard for the first time the words of a person who changed her life.

Joe Wagner of Brandeis University was giving a lecture on the Upward Bound program. He inspired Lynda to think about her life beyond the context of her impoverished surroundings. Wagner became Lynda Jordon's mentor and encouraged her to attend North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (North Carolina A&T). She earned a bachelor of science degree in chemistry at A&T and a master of science degree in chemistry from Atlanta University in 1980. Lynda returned home to Boston where she pursued a Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"Most of the students were males, and only about three percent of the students were African American. At one point, when her notebook of data and notes from important, time consuming experiments mysteriously disappeared, Jordon felt like quitting."

Lynda persevered and eventually earned a fellowship to the prestigious Pasteur Institute in Paris. In Paris, Lynda began working on PLA-2. PLA-2 plays an important role in triggering the onset of labor and plays a role in several diseases. She accepted an offer to return to North Carolina A&T to teach and mentor up and coming African American scientists. When Lynda returned to A&T she faced an appalling lack of the equipment she would need to conduct her research and properly teach science.

Lynda Jordon has generated $1,610,000. in grants since 1988 and is now in the process of purifying PLA-2 to determine its exact physiological function. "And, even though her ultimate goal of understanding PLA-2 has so far remained elusive, Jordon loves the unexpected nature of her work. 'As you continue to dig, you find little jewels', she says, 'Itss beautiful!'"

The most beautiful thing about Lynda is that the science is secondary to mentoring other African Americans. When asked about success, Lynda emphatically states that success is "a measure of the people you develop." Dr. Lynda Jordon is a measure of success.

Lynda was featured in "Discovering Women" a series about women scientists produced by WGBH Boston for PBS. Emmy Award Winning Producer of Discovering Women, Judith Vecchione, will interact with women in discussions of the series at WITI's Channels for Change Conference in Santa Clara. Misha Mahawald, one of the other scientists profiled in the series, will also attend the conference to discuss the exciting new field of scientific inquiry she helped foster.