Reverend Dr. Lynda Marie Jordan is a native Bostonian, born in Roxbury, Massachusetts. She is the third of fewer than 15 women of African descent—to date—who have earned the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). After receiving the Ph.D. degree, Dr. Jordan served as a Postdoctoral Fellow for 2 years at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, France, where she made substantial contributions to the purification and characterization of key proteins involved in human inflammatory processes. Her pioneering work in identifying both the calcium-dependent and calcium-independent high-molecular-weight Human Placental Phospholipase A2 (PLA2) isoforms laid the groundwork for many of the advancements we see in biomedical research today.