Charlyne Smith Becomes First Black Woman To Graduate With A PhD In Nuclear Engineering At University of Florida

Congratulations to Charlyne Smith. The Jamaican native has become the 1st Black woman to earn a Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from University of Florida.

Smith grandfather inspired to her intelligence to help make Jamaica a better place. She dreamed of becoming a scientist and inventor at a very young age, according to Jamaicans.

Smith wants to improve the electrical power and other reliable infrastructure in Jamaica and other Caribbean islands. When a natural disaster like a hurricanes, earthquakes, or etc happen in the future, she wants to help these islands maintain power and clean water.

Before attending the University of Florida, she went to Coppin State University an HBCU in Baltimore, Maryland. She graduated with a degree in chemistry and mathematics in 2017. While at Coppin State University, she studied fruits with dark pigments to create dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), hypothesizing that these cells would absorb enough ultraviolet radiation (UV) to power large devices. She discovered this was not a feasible path toward providing reliable power to third-world countries in the immediate future.

After a conversation with Dr. Nickie Peters – her first meeting with a nuclear scientist – at an alumni event at CSU, Smith moved on from solar research to pursue a career in the nuclear field, becoming convinced that nuclear technology has the potential to make real change happen immediately. She received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship in 2018 to study at UF’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering.