Indra Krishnamoorthy Nooyi (India)

After completing her undergraduate studies at the University of Madras and graduate studies from the Indian Institute of Management (Calcutta) in India, Nooyi traveled to the Yale School of Management (SOM). A member of only the third class to graduate from SOM, she received a master’s degree in public and private management in 1980. As a business executive, Nooyi had a long career at various companies before landing at Pepsi where she served as CEO for 12 years.

Margaret Marshall (South Africa)

After completing her undergraduate studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, Margaret Marshall moved to the U.S. and pursued a Master’s degree in Education at Harvard and a J.D at Yale Law School (1976). During the apartheid era, as a student activist, she led the National Union of South African Students dedicated to achieving equality for all South Africans. Her legal career in Boston included years of private practice and five years as General Counsel at Harvard University.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria)

After completing secondary school and a year and a half of medical school at the University of Nigeria, Adichie came to the United States to study at Drexel University and then Eastern Connecticut State. Continuing the writing career she began in Nigeria, Adichie completed a master’s degree in creative writing at Johns Hopkins and in 2008 received a master’s degree in African Studies from Yale.

Grace Evelyn Pickford (United Kingdom)

Born at the turn of the 20th century in England, Grace Evelyn Pickford received her PhD from Yale in 1931 for research based on studies of her South African oligochaete worm collections. Prior to coming to Yale, she completed her undergraduate studies at Cambridge University receiving the equivalent of a B.A. (Cambridge did not grant B.A. degrees to women at the time.)

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