Alice Ball was an African American chemist who developed the first successful treatment for Hansen’s disease (Leprosy).

Ball was the first African American and the very first woman to graduate with a M.S. degree in chemistry from the University of Hawaii. She then became the institution’s very first woman chemistry instructor and laboratory researcher.

Ball developed the first injectable leprosy treatment using oil from the chaulmoogra tree, which had been used previously in Chinese and Indian medicine. This is now known as the “Ball Method” and was used to treat thousands of infected individuals for over thirty years. Ball was not recognised for her work until after her death.