Jami Valentine Miller (born December 3, 1974) is a patent examiner at the

United States Patent and Trademark Office The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark registration authority for the United States. The USPTO's headquarters are in Alexa ...

. She was the first African American woman to graduate with a PhD in physics from

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

. She created the website AAWIP.com, which celebrates African American Women in Physics.

Early life and education

Valentine was born in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

. During junior high she joined the Philadelphia Regional Introduction for Minorities to Engineering (PRIME) program, which prepared her for a career in physics or mathematics. She attended high school at

Murrell Dobbins Vocational School Murrell Dobbins Career & Technical Education High School, also known as Murrell Dobbins Vocational High School, is a historic vocational school building located in the West Lehigh neighborhood of North Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. I ...

, graduating in 1992. She completed a bachelor's degree in physics at

Florida A&M University Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU), commonly known as Florida A&M, is a public historically black land-grant university in Tallahassee, Florida. Founded in 1887, It is the third largest historically black university in the U ...

, which she graduated

cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...

in 1996. Whilst at FAMU she was a "Life-Gets-Better" scholar, which allowed her to work as a summer research assistant at

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a federal research facility in Livermore, California, United States. The lab was originally established as the University of California Radiation Laboratory, Livermore Branch in 1952 in response ...

. She also worked in the Center for Nonlinear and Nonequilibrium Aeroscience. Upon graduating from Fame, she moved on to

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

for her postgraduate studies, earning a master's degree in 1998. Valentine studied under Chia-Ling Chien at

, where she worked on

spintronics Spintronics (a portmanteau meaning spin transport electronics), also known as spin electronics, is the study of the intrinsic spin of the electron and its associated magnetic moment, in addition to its fundamental electronic charge, in solid-sta ...

. Her research focused on novel

rare earth metal The rare-earth elements (REE), also called the rare-earth metals or (in context) rare-earth oxides or sometimes the lanthanides (yttrium and scandium are usually included as rare earths), are a set of 17 nearly-indistinguishable lustrous silve ...

s for memory applications. She successfully defended her dissertation, "Spin Polarization Measurements of Rare Earth Thin Films", in 2006.

Career

As a PhD student, Valentine realized that there were not many professors who looked like her. From 1973 to 2012, only 66 black American women earned PhDs in physics, compared to 22,172 white men. She became involved with national efforts to improve diversity in physics. She developed the nonprofit African American Women in Physics
(AAWIP)
which honors the contributions of African American women to physics. She has made efforts to meet and document as many of them as she can. She has worked with 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 ...

to increase awareness of underrepresented groups to physics. Valentine joined the

as an electrical engineer, working on semiconductor and spintronic memory devices. In 2012 she was appointed primary examiner.

Honors and awards

Valentine has been an invited speaker at several physics conferences as well as appearing on podcasts. In February 2017 she was honored by the

for distinguished service to the organization. In 2016, she was honored with the Florida A & M University Distinguished Alumni Award. She was an invited plenary speaker for the 2019 Physics Congress where she was to address more than 1,500 physics and astronomy students. In 2022 she was honored with the Johns Hopkins University Distinguished Alumna Award. She was named a

Fellow of the American Physical Society The American Physical Society honors members with the designation ''Fellow'' for having made significant accomplishments to the field of physics. The following lists are divided chronologically by the year of designation. * List of American Physic ...

in 2023, "for extraordinary contributions to diversity and inclusion in physics, both in the United States and internationally, and for essential contributions to the history and promotion of Black women in American physics, through the founding of African-American Women in Physics, Inc". In 2023 she was appointed to the Johns Hopkins University Krieger School of Arts and Sciences Advisory Board. She also sits on the Physics and Astronomy Advisory Council for Hopkins.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Valentine, Jami 1974 births Living people American condensed matter physicists Brown University alumni 21st-century African-American scientists Patent examiners Rare earth scientists Members of the National Society of Black Physicists 21st-century African-American academics 21st-century American academics 20th-century African-American academics 20th-century American academics African-American physicists Fellows of the American Physical Society