Dolores Richard Spikes

Dolores Margaret Richard Spikes (August 24, 1936 – June 1, 2015) was an American mathematician and was President of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, from 1997 to 2001. Spikes studied mathematics at Southern University and graduated in 1957, before earning a master's degree in math from University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. She was the first African American woman to earn a PhD in mathematics from the Louisiana State University in 1971. Spikes was also the first female university chancellor and later the first female president of a university system in the United States leading Southern University between 1988 and 1996. Spikes died on June 1, 2015, aged 78. She was married to Hermon Spikes until his death in 2008. Their only child Rhonda died in 2010.