Wangarĩ Muta Maathai (1 April 1940 – 25 September 2011) was a renowned Kenyan social, environmental and political activist and the first African woman to win the Nobel Prize. As a beneficiary of the Kennedy Airlifts, she studied in the United States, earning a Bachelor’s Degree at Mount St. Scholastica (Benedictine College) and a Master’s Degree at the University of Pittsburgh. She went on to become the first woman in East and Central Africa to become a Doctor of Philosophy, receiving her Ph.D. from the University of Nairobi in Kenya.