N.C. A&T Alumni Times

Dr. Arlene Maclin ’67 is known for being the first female physicist at North Carolina A&T State University. She has dedicated her life’s work of mentoring young women to pursue science, technology, engineering or mathematics careers.

During her time at N.C. A&T she was the only woman in the physics department and mostly throughout her career she has been the only woman of color in her departments. She is a physicist by training and has spent the past 30 years in a combination of academic and government service positions under President Jimmy Carter and President Ronald Reagan administrations. In addition, she worked for the Central Intelligence Agency with a focus on minimization of security devices.

Maclin has been a leader in developing opportunities in science and mathematics for minorities and in ensuring that STEM students have a global education by supporting more than 100 students since 2004 with cultural immersion experiences in South Africa, Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia, China, Japan and India. She is an active recruiter of minority undergraduate and graduate students for STEM programs throughout the nation. Through her hard work, she has been very pivotal in the Optical Engineering Program at Norfolk State University. The program has a state of the art laboratory due to funding and has a 96 percent graduation rate in engineering.

Currently, Maclin works as a senior research staff in the Institutional Research Engagement Program at Howard University.