Robert Henry “Pete” Bragg Jr. (August 11, 1919 – October 2, 2017), was a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in the UC Berkeley College of Engineering.

Education

Bragg attended

Tilden Technical High School Edward Tilden Career Community Academy High School (formerly known as Tilden Technical High School) is a public 4–year high school bordered between the Canaryville and Fuller Park neighborhoods on the south side of Chicago, Illinois, United Sta ...

and Woodrow Wilson Junior College in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. Bragg served in the military during World War II, and then used the money allotted to him from the

G.I. Bill The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I. Bill, was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I.s). The original G.I. Bill expired in 1956, bu ...

to attend Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), and pursue a career in physics. Bragg earned a BS degree in 1949 and an MS degree in 1951 and subsequently worked for the Dover Electroplating Company and at the

Portland Cement Association Portland Cement Association is a non-profit organization that promotes the use of cement and concrete. The organization conducts and sponsors research, participates in setting cement manufacturing standards, and disseminates free designs of concre ...

Research Laboratory. He earned his PhD in physics from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1960, and worked for Palo Alto Research Laboratory for the Lockheed Missiles and Space Company from 1960 to 1969.

Career

In 1969, the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

hired him as a full professor, and he also became a principal investigator at the Materials and Molecular Division at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. His research was in the areas of

X-ray crystallography X-ray crystallography is the experimental science determining the atomic and molecular structure of a crystal, in which the crystalline structure causes a beam of incident X-rays to diffract into many specific directions. By measuring the angles ...

, eutectic solidification, and the properties of

carbon materials Carbon () is a chemical element with the symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent—its atom making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds. It belongs to group 14 of the periodic table. Carbon makes up o ...

. While at Berkeley, Bragg served on the policy advisory board of the Black Studies program and managed the Chancellor's Fellowship Program providing opportunities for minority faculty. Bragg retired from the Berkeley faculty in 1987, after a career that included service as Department Chair from 1978 to 1981. At the time he was one of six black faculty members. In retirement, Bragg was awarded a

Fulbright The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

fellowship to conduct research at the

University of Ife Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) is a federal government-owned university that is located in the ancient city of Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria. The university was founded in 1961 and classes commenced in October 1962 as the University of Ife ...

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...

in 1992, and developed an exhibit for the Museum of African American Technology in

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...

. In 1995, Bragg became a fellow of the National Society of Black Physicists. He was not related to the British Bragg family of scientists.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bragg, Robert Henry 1919 births 2017 deaths American physicists 20th-century African-American scientists 21st-century African-American scientists Illinois Institute of Technology alumni Kennedy–King College alumni UC Berkeley College of Engineering faculty People from Jacksonville, Florida African-American physicists