One of the Emilio Segrè Visual Archives’ more recent acquisitions is an addition to the Ronald E. Mickens Collection of African-American physicists. This collection was originally donated to AIP in 2009, but continues to grow over time with new photographs donated by Dr. Mickens, who is currently the Callaway Professor of Physics at Clark Atlanta University.
Included in this collection are photographs and portraits of notable physicists such as Mickens himself, NASA astronaut Ronald McNair, President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Shirley Ann Jackson, Carl Rouse who was the first African-American to earn a physics PhD from Caltech, and John S. Toll Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland Sylvester James Gates.
Henry McBay, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, and Ronald Mickens in Dr. McBay’s office at Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia. Date: July 1994
AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Ronald E. Mickens Collection
Optical physicist and Fellow of The Optical Society (OSA) and the American Physical Society (APS) Anthony Johnson working in an ultrafast laser lab. Date: unknown
AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Ronald E. Mickens Collection
Formal portrait of health physicist Hattie Carwell, who worked at the U.S. Department of Energy and the International Atomic Energy Agency, among other institutions, throughout her career. Date: unknown
AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Ronald E. Mickens Collection
Project Engineer William Conway (left) and Principal Investigator Dr. George Carruthers with the Apollo 16 Far Ultraviolet Camera/Spectrograph. Date: unknown
Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Ronald E. Mickens Collection
Astrophysicist Carl A. Rouse in front of his home office PC used to access the Cray T90 at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. Date: March 9, 1998
AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Ronald E. Mickens Collection
Dr. Justin B. Munyakazi, from the University of the Western Cape in South Africa, with Ronald Mickens in front of the old Clark Atlanta University Library. Date: November 2013
AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Ronald E. Mickens Collection
The theme for this year’s preservation week is Is This Thing On?: Preserving Memory and Building Archives and focuses on documenting personal memories and narratives. Explore the work that goes into one of the cornerstones of AIP collections: oral histories.
Cognizant of their role within the scientific community, scientific societies had to weigh how to respond to the actions by the Atomic Energy Commission.
For the UNESCO section chief, “striking a balance between global coherence and respect for national ownership and cultural diversity is both essential and complex.”