Lynda Jordan at Commencement, 1985

Lynda M. Jordan PhD '85 earned a PhD in Biological Chemistry from MIT in 1985. She is the third of less than ten women of African descent to date who hold a PhD in Biological Chemistry from MIT, and “one of the few Boston urban minority high school students to obtain a doctorate degree” from the Institute, according to MIT News in 2001.  At the time Dr. Jordan attended MIT, 80% of the students were men, only 3% were African-American, and only two African-American women had received PhDs from her department.

After MIT, Jordan became a Postdoctoral Fellow at The Institut Pasteur in Paris, and later taught as an Associate Professor of Chemistry at North Carolina A&T State University.  She returned to MIT appointment as an MLK Visiting Professor (1997-2000). In 1998, she was honored with a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Leadership Award during the 24th MIT MLK Celebrations. She went on to earn both a Master of Divinity (MDiv) and a Master of Public Health (MPH) from Harvard University.

Jordan is CEO and Founder of A Place to Heal Ministries, Inc. (APTHM) and Associate Minister at the Holy Temple Church in Roxbury, MA. She is the author of Racial & Ethnic Health Disparities : Building Bridges of Hope through the Holy Spirit (Tate Publishing, 2015).