As a professor of chemistry and biochemistry and the chair for natural sciences and mathematics at Spelman College, Leyte Winfield has spent 21 years guiding students through the complexities of science. This fall, she’s introducing them to a new venture that comes from her personal passion: cosmetic chemistry.
“I have always been fascinated with personal care products — lotions, shampoos — and how to improve their efficacy to ensure they work,” she said. “At the same time, I’m very interested in ensuring Black women are well represented in the STEM fields, where less than 2% of U.S. scientists and engineers are Black women. So the idea came from merging those two passions: personal care products and making sure Black women are represented in STEM.”
The new program offers a concentration in cosmetic chemistry for chemistry majors and a minor in cosmetic science for students in other fields. In both cases, Spelman is the first HBCU to have such a program. According to Winfield, only the University of Toledo in Ohio has a similar offering that’s part of the pharmacy school.
“We’re the first to have this program at a primarily undergraduate institution in the science department,” said Winfield. “But it was a very slow walk to get here.”
Winfield debuted the concept in 2008 during a summer program for incoming first-year students. From there, she expanded it into a seminar, and in 2019, the college began to look seriously at getting such a program credentialed and attracting students to it. In 2022, a certificate program was launched aimed at nontraditional students.
“These are people usually in the beauty industry already: cosmetic chemists who want to refresh their skills or cosmetologists who want to enhance their practical skills and maybe create some of their own,” Winfield said. “And we thought of entrepreneurs who may want credentials to add to their self-taught skills.”
During the four terms per academic year, the certificate track usually draws between 15 and 20 students per term, said Winfield. From that demonstrated interest, the program caught the attention of undergraduates who wanted to pursue the same field.
“There’s been a pretty overwhelming response,” said Winfield. “We had about 175 students sign the petition to support the program, though we won’t know what that will yield until later this semester. We average about 100 chemistry majors a year.”
Winfield said she’s confident the new program will create career pathways she didn’t have when she was in college.
“We created this for Black women in particular to have the opportunity I didn’t have 30 years ago,” she said. “This education intentionally prepares them to be scientists in the beauty industry that relies on well-trained talent..”
Information about the cosmetic chemistry program is online at spelman.edu.
MAKING THE GRADE
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