Technical Achievers

Neighbors, friends, parents, and students;

This is another group of African American pioneers in the field of science that we honor during this month.

A tip of our collective hats once again to three more pioneering scientists.  Dr Carruthers and Johnson are each members along with me in the National Technical Association.(NTA)

They represent the abundance of technical creativity and intellectual strength that exists across America that remains underutilized.

Dr. George R. Carruthers

 George Robert Carruthers was born on October 1, 1939, in Cincinnati, OH. Carruthers is an internationally-renowned astrophysicist, is a pioneer in the use of ultraviolet astronomy for studying the Earth, our Solar System, and the universe. He has spent his career in the Space Science Division of the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, D.C., developing space telescopes and other photometric instruments, in collaboration with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Carruthers invented the far ultraviolet camera/spectrograph (UVC), also known as the lunar surface ultraviolet camera. This imaging instrument was flown to the moon on the 1972 Apollo 16 mission, where it used ultraviolet light to obtain images of Earth and outer space. Carruthers graduated from Chicago's Englewood High School in 1957 the same year Russia launched Sputnik , the first earth satellite,  and entered the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois' Champaign-Urbana campus.

 Carruthers actively promotes science and technology among young people, particularly young blacks. He has been a member of Science, Mathematics, Aerospace, Research, and Technology (SMART), Inc. since 1990 and its vice president since 1995. Project SMART encourages black teachers and students to pursue science and technology through local training workshops. Carruthers has worked with the NRL's Community Outreach Program and other educational and community organizations, supporting science education at high schools in the Washington, D.C. area. He was inducted into the Inventor’s Hall of Fame in 2003.

Dr Katherine Johnson

Katherine Johnson (born on August 26, 1918) has made significant contributions to America's aeronautics and space advances and in the early application of digital electronic computers at NASA. Johnson was born in 1918 in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. Katherine graduated from high school at 14, from college at 18. She taught in elementary and high schools in West Virginia and Virginia for 17 years.  In June 1953, Katherine was contracted as a research mathematician at the Langley Research Center.

 At first she worked in a pool of women performing math calculations. Katherine has referred to the women in the pool as virtual `(computers who wore skirts ). Their main job was to read the data from the black boxes of planes and carry out other related precise mathematical tasks.

 At NASA, Katherine Johnson started work in the all-male Flight Mechanics Branch and later moved to the Spacecraft Controls Branch. She calculated the trajectory for the space flight of Alan Shepard, the first American in space, in 1959 and the launch window for his 1961 Mercury mission. She plotted backup navigational charts for astronauts in case of electronic failures 

 Garrett Morgan

 Garrett Morgan was an inventor and businessman from Cleveland who is best known for inventing a device called the Morgan safety hood and smoke protector in 1914. The son of former slaves, Garrett Morgan was born in Paris, Kentucky on March 4, 1877. In 1895, Morgan moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where he went to work as a sewing machine repair man for a clothing manufacturer. In 1920, Garrett Morgan moved into the newspaper business when he established the Cleveland Call.

 On July 25, 1916, Garrett Morgan made national news for using his gas mask to rescue 32 men trapped during an explosion in an underground tunnel 250 feet beneath Lake Erie. Morgan and a team of volunteers donned the new "gas masks" and went to the rescue. After the rescue, Morgan's company received requests from fire departments around the country who wished to purchase the new masks. Two years later, a refined model of his early gas mask won a gold medal at the International Exposition of Sanitation and Safety, and another gold medal from the International Association of Fire Chiefs.

 After witnessing a collision between an automobile and a horse-drawn carriage, Garrett Morgan took his turn at inventing a traffic signal. Other inventors had experimented with, marketed, and even patented traffic signals, however, Garrett Morgan was one of the first to apply for and acquire a U.S. patent for an inexpensive to produce traffic signal. The patent was granted on November 20, 1923.