James Edward Young (born January 18, 1926) is an American physicist who was the first black tenured faculty member in the Department of Physics at

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

. He was a founding member of the

National Society of Black Physicists The National Society of Black Physicists (NSBP), established in the United States in 1977, is a non-profit professional organization with the goal to promote the professional well-being of African Diaspora physicists and physics students within the ...

and a mentor for

Shirley Ann Jackson Shirley Ann Jackson, (born August 5, 1946) is an American physicist, and was the 18th president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She is the first African American woman to have earned a doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ...

Early life and education

Young was born in

Wheeling, West Virginia Wheeling is a city in Ohio County, West Virginia, Ohio and Marshall County, West Virginia, Marshall counties in the U.S. state of West Virginia. The county seat of Ohio County, it lies along the Ohio River in the foothills of the Appalachian Mo ...

. He attended Lincoln High School, a

segregated school Racial segregation is the separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life. Segregation can involve the spatial separation of the races, and mandatory use of different institutions, such as schools and hospitals by people ...

for African-American children of

Ohio County, West Virginia Ohio County is a county located in the Northern Panhandle of the U.S. state of West Virginia, and forms part of the Wheeling metropolitan area. As of the 2020 census, the population was 42,425. Its county seat is Wheeling. The county was f ...

and

Marshall County, West Virginia Marshall County is a county in the U.S. state of West Virginia. At the 2020 census, the population was 30,591. Its county seat is Moundsville. With its southern border at what would be a continuation of the Mason-Dixon line to the Ohio River ...

, and graduated in 1941. Young studied physics at

Howard University Howard University is a private, historically black, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and accredited by the Mid ...

, and earned his bachelor's degree in 1946. James Edward Young. Professor of Physics, Emeritus.
MIT Department of Physics. From 1946 to 1949, he was a physics instructor at the

Hampton Institute Hampton University is a private, historically black, research university in Hampton, Virginia, United States. Founded in 1868 as Hampton Agricultural and Industrial School, it was established by Black and White leaders of the American Missiona ...

, while working on a master's degree in physics at Howard. In 1949, he joined

as a research assistant. In 1953, he earned a Ph.D. in physics, and his MIT dissertation was titled, “Propagation of Sound In Attenuating Ducts Containing Absorptive Strips.” He completed a one-year Post-doctoral Fellow in Acoustics at MIT in 1954. Young's early research considered the propagation of noise in pipes. He was a member of

Sigma Pi Sigma Sigma Pi Sigma () is an American honor society for physics and astronomy. It was founded at Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina on December 11, 1921. It is the oldest and only American honor society for physics and astronomy. It is an or ...

Sigma Xi Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society () is an international non-profit honor society for scientists and engineers. Sigma Xi was founded at Cornell University by a faculty member and graduate students in 1886 and is one of the oldest ...

, and

Beta Kappa Chi Beta Kappa Chi () is an American collegiate honor society that recognizes academic achievement in the fields of natural science and mathematics. It was established in 1923 at Lincoln University, an historically Black university near Oxford, Penns ...

. After earning his PhD, Young joined

Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development Laboratory, laboratories of the United States Department of Energy National Laboratories, United States Department of Energy ...

, where he began working on particle physics. He investigated

pion In particle physics, a pion (, ) or pi meson, denoted with the Greek alphabet, Greek letter pi (letter), pi (), is any of three subatomic particles: , , and . Each pion consists of a quark and an antiquark and is therefore a meson. Pions are the ...

s and

deuteron Deuterium (hydrogen-2, symbol H or D, also known as heavy hydrogen) is one of two Stable isotope ratio, stable isotopes of hydrogen; the other is protium, or hydrogen-1, H. The deuterium atomic nucleus, nucleus (deuteron) contains one proton and ...

stripping theory.

Research and career

Young researched and taught theoretical particle physics,

critical phenomena In physics, critical phenomena is the collective name associated with the physics of critical points. Most of them stem from the divergence of the correlation length, but also the dynamics slows down. Critical phenomena include scaling relations ...

, and nuclear physics in the

MIT Center for Theoretical Physics The MIT Center for Theoretical Physics (CTP) is the hub of theoretical nuclear physics, particle physics, and quantum information research at MIT. It is a subdivision of MIT Laboratory for Nuclear Science and Department of Physics. Research CTP ...

. He earned tenure in the Department of Physics at the

in 1969, and was the first black member of faculty to do so. He was interested in the intermediate structures in nuclear reactions. He contributed to several textbooks, including ''Nuclear, Particle and Many Body Physics'' and the ''Intermediate Structure in Nuclear Reactions.'' Young was the doctoral advisor for

, the first African-American woman to earn a PhD at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

, as well as

Sylvester James Gates Sylvester James Gates Jr. (born December 15, 1950), known as S. James Gates Jr. or Jim Gates, is an American theoretical physicist who works on supersymmetry, supergravity, and superstring theory. He is currently the Toll Professor of Physics at ...

. In 1977, Young was a founding member of the

. He founded the society with Ronald E. Mickens, with whom he had previously discussed senior Black physicists who became role models for their students. They hosted a meeting at

Fisk University Fisk University is a Private university, private Historically black colleges and universities, historically black Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Nashville, Tennessee. It was founded in 1866 and its campus i ...

to celebrate these "elders", including Halson V. Eagleson, Donald Edwards, and John McNeile Hunter. The National Society of Black Physicists emerged from these meetings, an independent society led by African-Americans who "created and developed activities and programs for themselves". In 2025, Young is recognized as Professor of Physics, ''Emeritus'', at MIT.

Personal life

Young married E. Elaine Hunter, with whom he has one child, James E. Young III.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Young, James Edward Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni MIT Center for Theoretical Physics faculty Howard University alumni 21st-century African-American scientists 1926 births Living people Members of the National Society of Black Physicists 21st-century African-American academics 21st-century American academics 20th-century African-American academics 20th-century American academics African-American physicists