The Claudette Pinede Memorial Scholarship Fund supports Haitian women who want to pursue careers in Science, Technology, Engineering & Math, commonly known as STEM. We know there are many girls and young women in Haiti who share Claudette Pinede's passion for science and math. We also know there are many who are reading textbooks and doing equations under street lamps and in other difficult situations, dreaming of how they will make the world a better place.
Without support and mentoring, their dreams will remain just that.
Each one, teach one, says the African proverb. Claudette Pinede was a lover of proverbs, along with math and compound interest, so we believe she would appreciate this variation: Each one, reach two. Your gift to the Claudette Pinede Memorial Scholarship Fund will help us reach young Haitian women to support their dreams of a university education in STEM.
Your generosity will make a critical difference in nurturing their dreams of using that education to make the world a better place.
When I was a little girl, my mother, Claudette Pinede (née Claudette Pierre-Noël), gave me a book.
The women in it had strange names I had never seen before: Hypatia of Alexandria, Emilie du Châtelet, Maria Mitchell, Rosalind Franklin, Lise Meitner, Rachel Carson. They were women of science. Women ahead of their time.
There was one name that even I, with my dyscalculia and aversion to science, quickly recognized: Madame Curie. Twice recipient of the Nobel Prize. Responsible for scientific research that would forever change our world.
My mother confided that as a young woman, she was inspired by Marie Curies life. Like my mother, Madame Curie was born and raised in a small country proud of its history. Despite the challenging obstacles in her way, she made the world better with her scientific work.
My mother also grew up in a small proud, country, but one with a grand history that still looms large around the world. Too often known as the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, Haiti is also the only nation borne of a successful slave rebellion. The Haitian Revolution has been called the original Black Lives Matter movement. Haiti is all of this, and much more.
In Haiti, my mother graduated at the top of her class from the best girls school, and then earned her university degree in Chemistry and Science. With a merit scholarship from the French government, my mother studied in Paris at one of Frances most prestigious universities, as did Madame Curie, earning her graduate degrees in Biology and Biochemistry.
In whatever university classroom she studied, my mother was always one of the few women, and nearly always the only Black woman. She hardly noticed, she said, because her passion for chemistry, biology, and math drove her to learn as much as she could. Taking her final exams in Paris, married and eight months pregnant with me, her belly was so big she had problems using her microscope and had to get help to make some adjustments. That did not stop her from once again finishing at the top of her class.
In Montreal, in the growing community of Haitians exiled by Duvalier, my mother began teaching science and math at Ecole Pie IX. She loved teaching so much that she taught algebra, geometry, chemistry, and biology for nearly half a century, in wildly different settings.
In one school, my mother taught a student who suddenly appeared with a limp, and watched in shock when he rolled up his pants to reveal a bullet lodged in his leg, his flesh beginning to rot from infection. At fifteen, he was alleged to be a suspect in an armed robbery. My mother and her students watched in shocked silence as he was handcuffed by police and taken away. Her heart was heavy when she recounted this story. In another school, my mother taught the relatives of the Kennedys, and a girl who would grow up to be one of the most powerful women in US government, the Senate Parliamentarian. She wrote in my mother's yearbook.
Wherever my mother was teaching, she expected the highest standards from her students. Chemistry eez fun! was how her accent sounded to her American students. They sometimes groused to us about her exacting standards, but they also respected her for it. To my mother, teaching was always in service to others. When done with heart and soul, it can be one of the most demanding, rewarding, and generous professions in the world.
Even so, my mothers girlhood dream was to become a research scientist, like Marie Curie. To that end, while teaching full-time and raising us as my father had to work late and travel for business, my mother earned degrees from two universities. Her ambitions high, she began a PhD program at New York University. However, life had other plans. Combining highly demanding academic coursework with late-night commutes to conduct laboratory experiments in the city, while raising two children in the suburbs even with the type of support and encouragement she did not have would be a daunting challenge for any woman. Let alone a first-generation immigrant who learned English in her thirties. Not without a fight, my mother had to let go of that dream, but never gave up her commitment to nurturing that kind of dream in others.
The day my mother saw a television interview with Dr. Kizzmekia Kizzy Corbin, a virologist and leader of the team that discovered a vaccine against Covid-19, she called me long distance. Her voice was bursting with the same pride as the day President Obama was first elected. Imagine how many lives she is saving, said my mother, as we discussed the very deeply-seated and genuine reasons for vaccine hesitancy and distrust of the medical establishment in the Black population. At least this vaccine by developed by one of us. Dr. Kizzy has often said that early encouragement at school and mentoring at university was critical in helping her achieve her dreams. Now she pays that forward in her work as an advocate for the underrepresented in science and math.
We stand on the shoulders of those who came before, most of whose names are not in any books.
As a family, we thank you greatly for helping us make these dreams come true.
Mesi anpil!
Nadine Pinede
Read Claudette Pinede's obituary here.
Our deepest gratitude to everyone who has supported us as we grew the fund to reach this point: Aakash Bhatia , Adrian Stoute , Aidan Whalen , Alexis Oni-Eseleh , Andrea Malaguti , Brandon Hill , the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation , Charlie Nelms , Christina Wing , Christine Rhein , Claire Gelinas , Claudia Thomas , Courtney Klein , Daniel Burns , David Murray , Diane Mungovan , Dominique Ganthier , Dominique Lamaute , Elaine Merryfield , Elizabeth Pinede , Erin Timochenko , Gail Aguiar , Jaya Mehta , Jennifer Bass , Josiane Faublas , Kaitlyn Young , Katie Clark , Keaton ONeil , Kelly Riordan , Lauren Wyszomierski , Leonore Tiefer , Lesla Newman , Luis Perelman , Maeve Elliott , Marie-Florence Vielot , Marlene Delva , Maude Heurtelou , Moira Whalen , Myrta Harrigan , Mytch Dorvilier , Nadine Pinede , Pierre Armand , Sheryl Seger , Stephanie Messenger , Suzanne Solomon , Tanya Faublas , Theresa Amato , Tina Riordan , William Handley, and other anonymous donors.
A special thank you to Charlie Nelms and the Mott Foundation.
To learn more about Black women in STEM, please visit these websites:
- 50 Black Women in STEM You Should Know About
- Celebrating Pioneering Black Women in Science
- Where are the Black Women in STEM Leadership?
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