Geraldine Claudette Darden is an American mathematician. She was the fourteenth African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics. She was born in Nansemond County, Virginia. Darden earned her degrees in mathematics from Hampton Institute an historically black institute; an M.S. (1960) University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, and her M.S. (1965) and a Ph.D. (1967) from Syracuse University. Her dissertation was completed under the auspices of James Reid, Ph.D., entitled, "On the Direct Sums of Cyclic Groups".