Chika Kuroda

Chika Kuroda (黒田チカ; 24 March 1884 – 8 November 1968) was a Japanese chemist whose research focused on natural pigments. She was the first woman in Japan to receive a Bachelor of Science.

Biography Chika Kuroda was born in Saga, Kyushu on 24 March 1884, the third daughter of her father Kuroda Heihachi (1843–1924) and her mother Toku.

She attended the Women's Department of Saga Normal School, graduating in 1901, and worked as a teacher for a year afterward. She entered the Division of Science at Rika Women's Higher Normal School in 1902 and graduated in 1906. She then taught at Fukui Normal School for a year before enrolling in the graduate program at Kenkyuka Women's Higher Normal School in 1907. She finished the course in 1909 and became an assistant professor at . In 1913, when Tohoku Imperial University became the first of Japan's Imperial Universities to accept women students, she was admitted to the Chemistry Department of the College of Science among the first cohort of three women; the other two were Ume Tange and Raku Makita. She was mentored by Professor , who inspired Kuroda's interest in organic chemistry, particularly natural pigments; he supervised her research into the purple pigment of Lithospermum erythrorhizon. She completed her Bachelor of Science in 1916, becoming the first woman in Japan to do so.

Kuroda was appointed an assistant professor at Tohoku Imperial University upon graduating in 1916 and became a professor at Tokyo Women's Higher Normal School in 1918. The same year, she became the first woman to give a presentation to the Chemical Society of Japan when she presented her research on the pigment of L. erythrorhizon.

Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Kuroda's research examined the pigments of the Asiatic dayflower, eggplant skin, black soybeans, red shiso leaves, and sea urchin spines, as well as derivatives of naphthoquinone.

A statue of Kuroda stands on the main street of Saga.