STEPHON ALEXANDER

Stephon Alexander was born in Trinidad, and moved to the United States at the age of Eight. He grew up in the Bronx, and attended De Witt Clinton High School. As a child Stephon didn’t believe he had what it took to graduate high school until he met his Physics teacher in 10th grade. Mr. Daniel Kaplan was the reason behind diverting Alexander’s mind towards physics. 

Stephon Alexander focuses on theoretical physicist, cosmologist, musician and author known for blending the worlds of theoretical physics and jazz music. Stephon Alexander is a professor of Physics at Brown University with previous appointments at Stanford University, Imperial College, Penn State, and Haverford College.  Stephon was also previously a professor at Dartmouth College, where he directed the Dartmouth EE Just Scholars program which promotes excellence and innovation for young scientists especially from underrepresented backgrounds. He is the president of the National Society of Black Physicist. He has worked on a variety of project throughout his career such as releasing an album called, Here Comes Now and his book. The Jazz of Physics, which explores the connection between music and physics. Stephon was also recently appointed as the executive director of Harlem Gallery of Science.

DANNI WASHINGTON

Danni Washington is the first African-American/woman of color to host her own science television series, called Xploration Nature Knows Best which aired nationwide on FOX network. In her latest science communication project, Mission Unstoppable, Danni serves as a correspondent in a new STEM educational TV show which features powerful women in the science world. She has also served as an on-camera personality with Untamed Science and Ocean GEMS.

Danni is deeply passionate about inspiring the next generation to connect and understand the ocean & natural world. She is a graduate of the University of Miami with a degree in Marine Science & Biology — At age 21, Danni co-founded the Big Blue & You, which is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to inspiring and educating youth about marine conservation through arts and media. In 2017 Danni was selected as one of the 10 young innovators who was profiled in CA Technologies #STEM10 initiative.

In addition to her love of marine science, youth outreach and the arts, she is also a scuba diver, stand-up paddleboarder, digital influencer, passionate influencer for social justice & change, as well as, an overall lover of the environment and ocean.

JOHN WILLIAM COLTRANE

John William Coltrane emerged as one of the most innovative and influential Jazz musician in the 20th century. Born in Hamlet, North Carolina on September 23, 1926, his family church shaped the spiritual dimension of his musical orientation. Soon after his fathers passing, Coltrane and his mother moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1943 to ensure he would have a proper education.

During the 1940s and ‘50s, Coltrane developed his craft as a saxophonist and composer, working with famous musicians/bandleaders Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington and Miles Davis. Coltrane’s music took an increasingly spiritual dimension. He remains one of the most influential saxophonists in music history.

Coltrane made connection between music and mathematic using geometric drawings. The visual experiment is believed to have been created by Coltrane during period when he undertook an in-depth study of Indian music along with a study of some of the theories of albert Einstein. The circle, which may be said t resemble a clock, incorporates some of the Coltrane’s theoretical innovations into a well-known musical scheme.

ERNEST EVERETT JUST

Ernest Everett Just was an African American biologist and educator best known for his pioneering work in the physiology of development, especially in fertilization. He was born on August 14,1883, in South Carolina. He studied at Kimball Union Academy in New Hampshire before enrolling at Dartmouth College. His interest in biology grew in college after reading a paper on fertilization and egg development. He was an excellent student earning the highest grades in Greek during his freshman year, and was then selected as a Rufus Choate scholar for two years. He graduated as the sole magna cum laude student in 1907, along with receiving honors in botany, sociology and history.

Just worked as a teacher and researcher at the traditionally all-black Howard University. Later, in 1909, he worked in research at Woods Hole Marine Biology Laboratory in Massachusetts. Soon he obtained a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Chicago, where he studies experimental embryology and graduated magna cum laude. Just also pioneered many areas including fertilization, experimental parthenogenesis, hydration, cell division, dehydration in living cells and ultraviolet carcinogenic radiation effects on cells. He won the NAACP’s first Spingarn Medial for outstanding achievement by a black American. From 1920-1931, he was a Julius Rosenwald Fellow in Biology of the National Research Council- a position that provided hi the chance to work in Europe when racial discrimination hindered his opportunities in the United states.

Ernest Just died of pancreatic cancer in Washington, D.C., on October 27, 1941.

KATHERINE JOHNSON

As an African American woman working for NASA in the 1950s and ‘60s, Katherine Johnson overcame social boundaries and racial discrimination. Born in 1918 in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, Johnson’s hometown did not offer public schooling for black children past eight grade so her family moved away so that she could attend highschool. Johnson graduated highschool at the age of 14 and college at the age of 18 with both mathematics and French degree.

Johnson soon applied and was hired at the NASA Langley Research Center, tasked with performing and checking calculation for fight tests. Katherine Johnson was a NASA mathematician who played a huge role in numerous NASA missions during the Space Race. She calculated the trajectory needed to get the Apollo 11 mission to the moon and back and also provided backup procedures that ensures the Apollo 13 crew’s safe return after their craft malfunctioned. She later helped to develop the space shuttle program and Earth resources satellite before retiring in 1986.

Johnson spend the following years encouraging students to pursue STEM education, and speaking about her career. In 2015, President Barack Obama awarded Johnson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor. And in 2016, the NASA Langley facility renamed a building in her honor: The Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility. In 2019, she published a book for younger reader called “Reaching for the Moon”. Katherine Johnson passed away on February 24, 2020, at the age of 101, and her legacy will be remembered.

SHIRLEY ANN JACKSON

Renowned physicist and university president, Shirley Ann Jackson was born on August 5, 1946, in Washington, D.C., to George Hiter Jackson and Beatrice Cosby Jackson. When Shirley Ann was a child, her mother read her the biography of Benjamin Banneker, an African American scientist and mathematician who helped build Washington, D.C. Her also father encouraged her interest in science by assisting her with projects for school. The Space Race of the late-1950s would also have an impact on Jackson as a child, spurring her interest in scientific investigation.

Jackson attended Roosevelt High School in Washington, D.C., where she took accelerated math and science classes. Jackson graduated as valedictorian and went onto apply to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She was accepted, making Jackson among one of the first African American students to attend MIT and the first woman to earn a PhD in physics in MIT’s history.

After receiving her degree, Jackson was hired as a research associate in theoretical physics at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, or Fermilab. While at Fermilab, Jackson studied medium to large subatomic particles, specifically hadrons, and a subatomic particle with a strong nuclear force. Throughout the 1970s, Jackson would work in this area on Landau theories of charge density waves in one- and two-dimensions, as well as Tang-Mills gauge theories and neutrino reactions.

After two years with the Fermilab, Jackson served as visiting science associate at the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Switzerland. In 1975, Jackson returned to Fermilab, and was simultaneously elected to the MIT Corporation’s Board of Trustees. In 1976, she began working on the technical staff for Bell Telephone laboratories in theoretical physics. Her research focused on the electronic properties of ceramic materials as superconductors of electric currents. While at Bell laboratories, Jackson met her future husband, physicist Morris A. Washington.

In 1980, Jackson became the president of the National Society of Black Physicists and in 1985; she began serving as a member of the New Jersey Commission on Science and Technology. In 1991, Jackson served as a professor at Rutgers while working for AT&T Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. In 1995, President Clinton appointed Jackson to the chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In 1997, Jackson led the formation of the International Nuclear Regulators Association. In 1998, Jackson was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame; the following year, she became the eighteenth president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Jackson remains an advocate for women and minorities in the sciences and, since 2001, has brought needed attention to the "Quiet Crisis" of America’s predicted inability to innovate in the face of a looming scientific workforce shortage.

Watch Rensselaer President Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson delivering her commencement address during the 2018 Commencement Ceremony.

MAE JEMISON

Growing up, Mae Jemison knew she would go into space. She said she didn’t care if there were many women or African-Americans did that before her, but her luck made her the first African-American woman ever traveled in space. She joined the mission STS-47, by which she spent 190 hours and more in space, from September 12th to 20th, 1992. Soon after that, she resigned from NASA, in March 1993, for the reason that she wanted to study the relationship between social science and technology. She had been a professor, educator and public intellect, gave speeches to commencements, enrolled in organizations, such as American Chemical Society, American Medical Association, and Association for Space Explorer, and later established her own companies. In later part of her career, her job was to arouse the interests of minority students into science, including writing a memoir for children.

Take a break to see one of her TED talks where her topic is arts and science. Everyone knows that she is a scientist and chemical engineer, but not that many know she was also a professional dancer, when she was a teenager. There was a chance that she might become a known dancer, but instead, she chose to study science at Stanford University. She made such choice, because her mother said she could still dance if she studied science, but not vice versa. She pointed out, in the talk, that there is a link between science and arts when people tend to make them two different fields. She said dance helped her a lot in the training of being an astronaut. Here she shares, “Science provides an understanding of a universal experience, and arts provide a universal understanding of a personal experience”.

GEORGE R. CARRUTHERS

Most of the times the desperation and call for science comes from childhood. When children in a summer camp looked at the night sky of Milky Way Galaxy, the tiny but shining stars, the enormous picture of the sky, they found their luck of being part of the universe. That is when they said I would like to explore it. Said by author and theoretical physicist Dr. Michio Kaku, after interviewing about 300 scientists who invented the future in their laboratory, the age 10 is commonly called the goldilocks zone to develop an interests in science.

Our story falls in George R. Carruthers, a African-American NASA inventor who led the team of inventing the far ultraviolet camera/spectrograph, as part of the mission of Apollo 16 in 1972. He grew up with interests in Physics, Science and Astronomy and became an telescope inventor at the age of 10. Although the telescope was not ideally matured, by taking cardboard and cheap lenses in use, you can’t require more for a child at that age.

He got his B.S. degree in Astronautic Engineering and M.S. degree in Nuclear Engineering and PhD. in Astronautical and Astronomical Engineering in 1964. His great honor, which got him an award of National Medal of Technology and Innovation, is from the invention of  the far ultraviolet camera/spectrograph, which would be able to absorb UV emissions on the moon. It was hard for scientists on earth to absorb UV because the earth atmosphere took away most of the UV emissions, but by doing that on the moon, there are a lot of data to be collected. Basically, they built a 50-pound, gold-plated camera that could catch the radiation from the upper half of the spectrum. The Apollo brought the camera to the moon and succeeded of collecting about 200 UV figures.

His other honors include Arthur S. Flemming Award, in 1970, Exceptional Achievement Scientific Award Medal in 1972, and Black Engineer of the Year Award 1987.