Trailblazer and Community Advocate Elmer Lucille Allen Receives 2025 A&S Alumni Award

By Laura Brock, Director of Development, Philanthropy and Alumni Engagement

Louisville native Elmer Lucille Hammonds Allen (A&S ’02) was not always an artist. As a student at Central High School, she thrived in science and math courses, graduating second in her class. She was chosen to give the commencement speech but had to overcome stuttering by seeking extra support from an English course. Had it not been for this experience, she believes she may still be stuttering today.   

Following high school graduation, Allen enrolled and paid for her own way to Louisville Municipal College, attending from 1949 to 1951. When cost became a barrier, she applied to Nazareth College (now Spalding University) as a junior where she majored in chemistry and minored in mathematics. 

Despite earning a degree in chemistry, it was difficult to find a job as a female chemist in 1954. Allen worked as a hospital technician in both Indianapolis and Louisville before landing her first chemistry job at American Synthetic Rubber Company (ASRC). When the lab at ASCR shut down, she was hired as a research chemist at UofL Medical and Research for Dr. Felix Bronner. In 1966, after the encouragement of a UofL colleague, she applied for and was hired as the first African American chemist at Brown-Forman, ultimately working her way up the executive ladder and retiring as Senior Analytical Chemist after a 31-year career.  

In the late 1970s, to better cope with arthritis in her hands, Allen took a ceramics course from an art therapist at Seneca High School. This class inspired her to take ceramics and fiber class at Metro Arts Center. She studied with Melvin Rowe and Laura Ross, UofL graduate ceramics students, who recommended that she apply to take a ceramics class at UofL. She took her first UofL ceramic class in 1981 from the late Thomas “Tom” Marsh, the founder of UofL Hite Art Institute ceramics program. In 2000, she was recruited to pursue a master’s degree at UofL, studying ceramics with Todd Burns and fiber arts with the late Lida Gordon.  

At age 94, Allen continues to take studio-art classes and can be regularly seen in her UofL studio space, as well as at cultural workshops, arts conferences, and exhibition events to meet other fellow artists around town.  

Allen is well known for her volunteerism and activism in Louisville, having co-founded the Kentucky Coalition of African American Arts and serving as a founding member of the Louisville Arts Council. She has been recognized many times for her contributions to the arts community, including through a mural in Louisville’s Smoketown neighborhood painted in her honor and a street in the Chickasaw neighborhood now bearing her name. This year, Allen will be recognized as the 2025 A&S Alumni Award winner, the highest honor bestowed by Louisville Alumni, in recognition for being a distinguished graduate and exemplary ambassador for the College of Arts and Sciences.  

Allen is also a dedicated supporter of UofL. Having been the first in her family to graduate from high school, she believes learning should never stop and wishes to serve as an example to others through her constant pursuit of coursework and her philanthropy. Thus, in 2020 she chose to name UofL as a charitable beneficiary in her will, noting, “Giving back is how I was raised. I believe everyone should do it.”  

Allen is the proud mother of three children, grandmother to one, and great grandmother to three great grandchildren.  

We wish to thank Elmer Lucille Allen for her continuous and future support and congratulate her on being honored as the 2025 Alumni Award winner. To learn more about how you can make a gift through your will or trust like Allen, visit Giving Through Your Will | the University of Louisville or UofL Health.