James Edward Young (born January 18, 1926) is an American physicist who was the first black tenured faculty member in the Department of Physics at

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

. He was a founding member of the

National Society of Black Physicists The National Society of Black Physicists (NSBP), established in the United States in 1977, is a non-profit professional organization with the goal to promote the professional well-being of African Diaspora physicists and physics students within the ...

and a mentor for

Shirley Ann Jackson Shirley Ann Jackson, (born August 5, 1946) is an American physicist, and was the 18th president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She is the first African-American woman to have earned a doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ...

Early life and education

Young was born in

Wheeling, West Virginia Wheeling is a city in the U.S. state of West Virginia. Located almost entirely in Ohio County, of which it is the county seat, it lies along the Ohio River in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains and also contains a tiny portion extending ...

. He attended Lincoln High School and graduated in 1941. Young studied physics at

Howard University Howard University (Howard) is a private, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity" and accredited by the Middle States Commissi ...

. He was appointed as a physics instructor at the

Hampton Institute Hampton University is a private, historically black, research university in Hampton, Virginia. Founded in 1868 as Hampton Agricultural and Industrial School, it was established by Black and White leaders of the American Missionary Association af ...

, whilst simultaneously completing a master's degree in

acoustical engineering Acoustical engineering (also known as acoustic engineering) is the branch of engineering dealing with sound and vibration. It includes the application of acoustics, the science of sound and vibration, in technology. Acoustical engineers are typical ...

. He moved to the

as a research assistant in 1949 and earned a Doctorate in Science in 1953. His early research considered the propagation of noise in pipes. He was a member of

Sigma Pi Sigma Sigma Pi Sigma (), founded at Davidson College on December 11, 1921, is the oldest and only American honor society for physics and astronomy. It is an organization within the Society of Physics Students and the American Institute of Physics and ...

Sigma Xi Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society () is a highly prestigious, non-profit honor society for scientists and engineers. Sigma Xi was founded at Cornell University by a junior faculty member and a small group of graduate students in 1886 ...

and

Beta Kappa Chi Beta Kappa Chi () is a scholastic honor society that recognizes academic achievement among students in the fields of natural science and mathematics. The society was founded at Lincoln University in 1923 and was admitted to the Association of Col ...

. After earning his PhD, Young joined

Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy (DOE), located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, ...

, where he began working on particle physics. He investigated

pion In particle physics, a pion (or a pi meson, denoted with the Greek letter pi: ) is any of three subatomic particles: , , and . Each pion consists of a quark and an antiquark and is therefore a meson. Pions are the lightest mesons and, more gene ...

s and

deuteron Deuterium (or hydrogen-2, symbol or deuterium, also known as heavy hydrogen) is one of two stable isotopes of hydrogen (the other being protium, or hydrogen-1). The nucleus of a deuterium atom, called a deuteron, contains one proton and one n ...

stripping theory.

Research and career

Young researched and taught theoretical particle physics,

critical phenomena In physics, critical phenomena is the collective name associated with the physics of critical points. Most of them stem from the divergence of the correlation length, but also the dynamics slows down. Critical phenomena include scaling relations ...

and nuclear physics in the

MIT Center for Theoretical Physics The MIT Center for Theoretical Physics (CTP) is the hub of theoretical nuclear physics, particle physics, and quantum information research at MIT. It is a subdivision of MIT Laboratory for Nuclear Science and Department of Physics. Research CTP ...

. He earned tenure in the Department of Physics at the

in 1969, and was the first black member of faculty to do so. He was interested in the intermediate structures in nuclear reactions. He contributed to several textbooks, including ''Nuclear, Particle and Many Body Physics'' and the ''Intermediate Structure in Nuclear Reactions''. Young was the doctoral advisor for

, the first African-American woman to earn a PhD at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the mo ...

, as well as

Sylvester James Gates Sylvester James Gates Jr. (born December 15, 1950), known as S. James Gates Jr. or Jim Gates, is an American theoretical physicist who works on supersymmetry, supergravity, and superstring theory. He currently holds the Clark Leadership Chair in ...

. In 1977 Young was a founding member of the

. He founded the society with Ronald E. Mickens, with whom he had previously discussed senior Black physicists who became role models for their students. They hosted a meeting at

Fisk University Fisk University is a private historically black liberal arts college in Nashville, Tennessee. It was founded in 1866 and its campus is a historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1930, Fisk was the first Africa ...

to celebrate these "elders", including Halson V. Eagleson, Donald Edwards and

John McNeile Hunter John McNeile Hunter (January 23, 1901 – July 1979) was an American physicist and chemist, and the third African American person to receive a PhD in physics in the United States. He spent the entirety of his career as a professor of physics at ...

. The National Society of Black Physicists emerged from these meetings, an independent society led by African-Americans who "created and developed activities and programs for themselves".

Personal life

Young married E. Elaine Hunter, with whom he has one child, James E. Young III.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Young, James Edward MIT Department of Physics alumni MIT Center for Theoretical Physics faculty Howard University alumni African-American scientists 1926 births Living people Members of the National Society of Black Physicists 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American people African-American physicists