NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Clarice Phelps is the first Black woman to help discover a new periodic table element.
"Taking a seat at the periodic table didn't happen overnight, it was actually a 20-year journey," she said in a TSU interview.
The element is known as Tennessine (Ts), number 117, and it is classified as a halogen.
How did she get to her discovery?
Phelps is a Tennessee State University graduate — her love of science started in chemistry class during her 10th grade year of high school.
After graduating from TSU, she achieved several milestones along her path to a periodic element:
- Received a masters degree in Nuclear and Radiation Engineering from UT Austin
- Joined the Navy for four years, where she applied what she learned in chemistry to radioactive materials
- Joined the Oak Ridge National Laboratory where she conducted purification work — isolating purified chemicals that were shipped to Germany and Russia and used as target material to produce atomic number 117 (Ts)
In 2016, Phelps officially received word that Tennessine was part of the periodic table.
It wasn't until 2019 when she was recognized by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) that she learned she was the first Black woman to help discover an element — and she was surprised.
"I had to Google it, and I still was in disbelief. However, I thought about me — as a little girl, desperately looking for someone like me in science who was an inspiration, and it changed my perspective," she said.
Phelps is currently working on her doctorate in Nuclear Engineering. She is hopeful the discovery will positively impact her community:
"It will change the small, yet-growing community of African American scientists and other scientists from marginalized communities," she said in a statement. "Being able to see something of themselves, to feel the common struggles that I share in this journey, to know the common invisibility of our impact on the scientific community, will be significant."
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