9781422283318

Black Achievement I N SC I E NC E

Technology

Elijah McCoy

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Mason Crest

Black Achievement I N SC I E NC E

Biology Chemistry Computer Science Engineering Environmental Science

Inventors Medicine Physics Space Technology

Black Achievement I N SC I E NC E

Technology By MARI RICH Foreword by Malinda Gilmore and Mel Poulson, National Organization for the Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers

Mason Crest 450 Parkway Drive, Suite D Broomall, PA 19008 www.masoncrest.com © 2017 by Mason Crest, an imprint of National Highlights, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Series ISBN: 978-1-4222-3554-6 Hardback ISBN: 978-1-4222-3564-5 EBook ISBN: 978-1-4222-8331-8 First printing 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Produced by Shoreline Publishing Group LLC Santa Barbara, California Editorial Director: James Buckley Jr. Designer: Patty Kelley Production: Sandy Gordon www.shorelinepublishing.com Cover photograph by MBI/Dreamstime. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Rich, Mari, author. Title: Technology / by Mari Rich ; foreword by Malinda Gilmore and Mel Poulson, National Organization for the Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers. Description: Broomall, PA : Mason Crest, [2017] | Series: Black achievement in science | Includes bibli- ographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016002450| ISBN 9781422235645 (hardback) | ISBN 9781422235546 (series) | ISBN 9781422283318 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: African American engineers--Biography--Juvenile literature. | African American scien- tists--Biography—Juvenile literature. | Technology--History--Juvenile literature. Classification: LCC TA157 .R4956 2017 | DDC 620.00922--dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016002450

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Contents

Foreword, by Malinda Gilmore and Mel Pouson, NOBCChE . 6 Introduction. 8 Frank Greene. 10 Gerald A. Lawson . 16 John W. Thompson . 22 Marc Hannah. 26 Herman Chinery-Hesse . 32 Kimberly Bryant . 38 Clarence Wooten. 44 Hadiyah Mujhid. 50 Careers in Technology. 56 Text-Dependent Questions . 60 Research Projects. 61 Find Out More . 62 Series Glossary of Key Terms. 63 Index/Author. 64

Key Icons to Look for

Words to Understand: These words with their easy-to-understand definitions will increase the reader’s understanding of the text, while building vocabulary skills. Research Projects: Readers are pointed toward areas of further inquiry connected to each chapter. Suggestions are provided for projects that encourage deeper research and analysis. Text-Dependent Questions: These questions send the reader back to the text for more careful attention to the evidence presented here. Series Glossary of Key Terms: This back-of-the-book glossary contains terminology used throughout this series. Words found here increase the reader’s ability to read and comprehend higher-level books and articles in this field. Educational Videos: Readers can view videos by scanning our QR codes, providing them with additional educational content to supplement the text. Examples include news coverage, moments in history, speeches, iconic moments, and much more!

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cience, Technology, Engineering and Mathe- matics (STEM) are vital to our future, the future of our country, the future of our regions, and the future of our children. STEM is everywhere and it shapes our everyday experiences. Sci- ence and technology have become the leading foundation of global development. Both subjects continue to improve the quality of life as new findings, inventions, and creations emerge from the basis of science. A career in a STEM disci- pline is a fantastic choice and one that should be explored by many. In today’s society, STEM is becoming more diverse and even internationalized. However, the shortage of African Americans and other minorities, including women, still

exists. This series— Black Achievement in Science — reveals the numerous ca- reer choices and pathways that great African-Ameri- can scientists, technologists,

By Malinda Gilmore, NOBCChE Executive Board Chair and Mel Poulson, NOBCChE Executive Board Vice-Chair

engineers, and mathematicians have pursued to become successful in a STEM discipline. The purpose of this series of books is to inspire, motivate, encourage, and educate people about the numerous career choices and pathways in STEM. We applaud the authors for sharing the experi- ences of our forefathers and foremothers and ultimately in- creasing the number of people of color in STEM and, more

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Black Achievement in Science: Technology

Series Foreword

specifically, increasing the number of African Americans to pursue careers in STEM. The personal experiences and accomplishments shared within are truly inspiring and gratifying. It is our hope that by reading about the lives and careers of these great sci- entists, technologists, engineers, and mathematicians, the reader might become inspired and totally committed to pursue a career in a STEM discipline and say to themselves, “If they were able to do it, then I am definitely able to do it, and this, too, can be me.” Hopefully, the reader will realize that these great accomplishments didn’t come easily. It was because of hard work, perseverance, and determination that these chosen individuals were so successful. As Executive Board Members of The National Organi- zation for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE) we are excited about this series. For more than 40 years, NOBCChE has promot- ed the STEM fields and its mission is to build an eminent cadre of people of color in STEM. Our mission is in line with the overall purpose of this series and we are indeed committed to inspiring our youth to explore and contribute to our country’s future in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. We encourage all readers to enjoy the series in its en- tirety and identify with a personal story that resonates well with you. Learn more about that person and their career pathway, and you can be just like them.

Series Foreword

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A

nyone living in about 3500 bce , after the Bronze Age had arrived in some parts of the world, might have witnessed what was then the height of technology: the first wheel. During the Industrial Age, which began in the mid- 18th century, cutting-edge technologies included the steam engine and the machine-powered tex- tile loom. The phrase “high-tech” obviously has different meanings depending on the historical period in question. The basic definition of technology, howev- er, remains the same: anything invented by humans—tools, materials, or processes— that makes life easier or solves problems. We’re now said to be in the midst of the Infor- mation Age, sometimes called the Computer Age or the Digital Age. Many modern historians assert that the Information Age had its genesis back in the late 1940s, when mathematician and engi- neer Claude E. Shannon published a revolutionary paper proposing that all

We are living in a time when the world is at our fingertips, whether on computers . . .

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Black Achievement in Science: Technology

Introduction

. . . or on smartphones. Thousands of jobs are being created and new careers are starting every day in the enormously wide-ranging fields of technology.

information could be quantitatively encoded as a series of ones and zeroes. By the 1970s, when the US government developed the Internet, and the 1980s, when personal com- puters became widely available, it was undeniable that the world had entered into an entirely new age. New technologies have changed the way we work and play, and African Americans, while still underrepre- sented in the tech fields, have made several important con- tributions. In the final chapter, read more about why diversity in the tech arena is so important and find out about possible paths to a high-tech career. •

Introduction

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Words to Understand integrated circuit a set of electronic circuits on one small plate (or chip) of semicon- ductor material, normally made of silicon Silicon Valley a nickname for the area south of San Francisco with numerous high-tech companies, so called because silicon is the most common semiconductor material used to create computer chips transistor a device that regulates current or voltage flow and acts as a gate for electronic signals

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Chapter 1

Frank Greene

Born: 1938 Died: 2009 Nationality: American Achievements:

W hile Silicon Valley is still not known as a showcase of racial diversity, Frank Greene is wide- ly credited for making the initial crack in its color barrier back in the 1960s. As an employee at Fairchild Semiconductor, a company that played a key role in the his- tory of Silicon Valley , Greene designed integrated circuits that became key components of the Illiac IV, then the most powerful computer in the world. He also went on to found two technology companies of his own—a feat nearly unheard of for a black man in that era. Later in life he launched New Vista, a high-tech venture firm that funded many minority-owned start-ups. “Success in life is not about ‘me’ but about what you can do to help others,” he asserted to one interviewer. Greene was born on October 19, 1938, in Washington, D.C., to Frank S. Greene, Sr. and

Inventor and electronics engineer whose work was key to building Silicon Valley powerhouses

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the former Irma Olivia Swygert. He grew up in a highly segregated section of St. Louis, Missouri, a place, he once said, where “making it through life was a civil-rights ac- tivity in itself.” A bright and highly motivated student, Greene attended St. Louis’s Washington University, joining only the second class in school history to accept students of color. While there, he was active in the burgeoning civ- il rights movement and participated in several sit-ins—a form of nonviolent protest in which demonstrators occupy a racially segregated restaurant or bus station and refuse to leave until they are either served or the police come to arrest them.

Greene lived through a time when sit-ins like this one in 1968 were part of a growing Civil Rights Movement.

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Black Achievement in Science: Technology

Once, he and his fellow protestors entered a local pizza parlor, expecting to be denied service. They were thus shocked when a wait- ress approached them to take their order. So certain were they that they would meet with failure that they hadn’t thought to bring any money. “From that day, I’ve always said, ‘You have to be pre- pared for opportunity when

African Americans have long played a part in the success of the military.

it arrives,’” he explained during an oral history interview archived at the HistoryMakers website. “You’ve got to be prepared for success.” Greene earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engi- neering in 1961 and then entered Purdue University, where he earned his master’s degree the following year. He then took a break from academia, joining the US Air Force and serving as an electronics engineer for four years. As part of his duties, he reportedly helped develop high-performance computers for the National Security Agency. Upon being discharged, Greene took a job with Fairchild Semiconductor, a company that had gotten its start a de- cade earlier, when Nobel Prize-winning physicist William Shockley, co-inventor of the transistor , launched an epon- ymous venture, Shockley Semiconductor. Within a year,

Frank Greene

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however, eight younger scientists (the “Traitorous Eight,” as they were widely known) defected and used their own money to develop a method of mass-producing silicon transistors relatively cheaply and efficiently. With the help of a $1.5 million investment from Fairchild Camera and In- strument Corporation, on October 1, 1957, their new com- pany, Fairchild Semiconductor, was founded. (“The Eight” shipped their first order—100 transistors that they had sold to IBM for $150 each—in an old carton from the supermar- ket.) By the time Greene joined the enterprise, Fairchild was well on its way to revolutionizing the computer industry, and he helped greatly in that mission; Greene’s name is on the patent for the integrated circuit that made the company

an undisputed industry leader in the late 1960s. (Integrated circuits could be made much, much smaller than separate circuits made from sev- eral separate electronic components. That was a key breakthrough in the ongoing drive to make computer parts smaller.) Greene, who in 1970 earned a Ph.D. from San- ta Clara University, later

Greene was part of the team that created the first integrated circuits, which have come a long way since.

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Black Achievement in Science: Technology