Ronald Mickens

Born on 7 February 1943 in Petersburg, Virginia, Ronald E. Mickens is a physicist and science historian who has worked to attract more African Americans to the field of physics. Mickens attended Fisk University, a private historically black institution in Nashville, Tennessee, from which he graduated summa cum laude in 1964 with a BA in physics. Four years later he earned his PhD in theoretical physics from Vanderbilt University. After a postdoctoral fellowship at MIT’s Center for Theoretical Physics, he returned to Fisk in 1970 to teach. In the 1970s Mickens helped found the National Society of Black Physicists, for which he has also served as the society’s historian. Since 1982 Mickens has been a member of the physics department of the historically black Clark Atlanta University in Georgia, where in 1985 he was named the Distinguished Fuller E. Callaway Professor of Physics. His areas of research have centered on nonlinear dynamics and mathematical modeling, and he has published more than 300 scientific articles and 15 books. Besides his scientific publications, he has written several historical and biographical works about African American scientists, such as Edward Bouchet: The First African-American Doctorate (2002). (Photo credit: AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Ronald E. Mickens Collection)

Date in History: 7 February 1943