Joseph Roye Applegate (December 4, 1925 – October 18, 2003) was the first black faculty member at the

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

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

expert who started working at MIT in 1955 and worked on

machine translation Machine translation, sometimes referred to by the abbreviation MT (not to be confused with computer-aided translation, machine-aided human translation or interactive translation), is a sub-field of computational linguistics that investigates t ...

. In the 1960s he started working 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 ...

and became a professor emeritus of

African Studies African studies is the study of Africa, especially the continent's cultures and societies (as opposed to its geology, geography, zoology, etc.). The field includes the study of Africa's history (pre-colonial, colonial, post-colonial), demography ...

and it was there that he started the nation's first Ph.D. program in African Studies.

Early life and family

Joseph Applegate was born in

Wildwood, New Jersey Wildwood is a city in Cape May County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is part of the Ocean City metropolitan statistical area and is a popular summer resort destination along the Jersey Shore. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city's year-rou ...

. His parents operated a boarding house.

Career

Applegate received his master's and PhD in linguistics from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

, after which he began his career 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 m ...

in the Research Laboratory of Electronics in 1955. At the Research Laboratory of Electronics he studied the

mechanical translation Machine translation, sometimes referred to by the abbreviation MT (not to be confused with computer-aided translation, machine-aided human translation or interactive translation), is a sub-field of computational linguistics that investigates th ...

of languages. In 1959 he became the director of MIT's new language laboratory. At MIT he taught linguistics with such peers as

Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...

and

Morris Halle Morris Halle (; July 23, 1923 – April 2, 2018) was a Latvian-American, Latvian-born Jewish United States, American Linguistics, linguist who was an Institute Professor, and later professor emeritus, of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute ...

. He left MIT and worked at the

University of California in Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

from 1960 to 1966. In 1966 he started working at

and became a professor of African studies in 1969. He was the director of the African Studies and Research Program from 1967 to 1969.

References

1925 births 2003 deaths Temple University alumni People from Wildwood, New Jersey Linguists from the United States {{US-linguist-stub