Celebrating Black History Month: Inspiring Black Optical Scientists and Engineers

Born in Tampa, Florida, Sylvester James Gates was the son of one of the first Black men to serve as a Sergeant Major in the U.S. military. His passion for physics was sparked in an 11th-grade course, leading him to apply to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned dual BS degrees in mathematics and physics, followed by a PhD in physics. His doctoral thesis was the first at MIT to focus on supersymmetry, and he later coauthored Superspace, the first comprehensive book on the subject. In 1984, he became an associate professor at the University of Maryland’s physics department and, in 1988, became the first Black physicist to hold an endowed chair at a major U.S. research university. Over his career, Gates has authored more than 200 scientific papers and been featured in numerous documentaries. In recognition of his contributions, President Barack Obama awarded him the National Medal of Science in 2013. He has also served as president of both the National Society of Black Physicists and the American Physical Society.

Audrey Bowden received her BSE in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University in 2001 before earning a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University in 2007. Her research specialized in optical coherence tomography, particularly the development of spectral domain phase microscopy, a novel technique for studying cellular dynamics. Her doctoral studies were supported by prestigious fellowships, including the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and the James B. Duke Fellowship. Following a postdoctoral fellowship in chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard, she joined Stanford University in 2010 as an assistant professor, where she directed the biomedical optics research group. In 2018, Bowden became an associate professor of biomedical engineering at Vanderbilt University and was named the Dorothy J. Wingfield Phillips Chancellor's Faculty Fellow. Her research focuses on developing advanced imaging devices and techniques using optical coherence tomography for early cancer detection.

George Carruthers developed an early passion for space flight through popular science fiction and built his first telescope out of cardboard at age 10. He earned a BS in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1961, followed by a master's degree in nuclear engineering in 1962 and a PhD in aeronautical and astronautical engineering in 1964. As the first E. O. Hulburt Postdoctoral Fellow at the United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), he designed and patented an image converter that transformed short-wavelength light images into electron images, leading to the detection of an upper limit on molecular hydrogen in the interstellar medium. His Far Ultraviolet Camera/Spectrograph, carried aboard the Apollo 16 mission in 1972, became the first astronomical observatory deployed on the Moon. Carruthers continued his work at NRL until retiring in 2002 and was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation in 2012 for his groundbreaking contributions to space science.