Raymond L. Johnson
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Raymond Lewis Johnson (born 1943) is an American mathematician, currently a professor emeritus at the
University of Maryland, College Park The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1856, UMD i ...
and an adjunct professor of mathematics at
Rice University William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University, is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States. Established in 1912, the university spans 300 acres. Rice University comp ...
. He was the first African-American student at
Rice University William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University, is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States. Established in 1912, the university spans 300 acres. Rice University comp ...
, and the first African-American mathematics professor at the University of Maryland. His research concerns non-well-posed problems and
harmonic analysis Harmonic analysis is a branch of mathematics concerned with investigating the connections between a function and its representation in frequency. The frequency representation is found by using the Fourier transform for functions on unbounded do ...
.


Early life and education

Johnson was born on 25 June 1943 in
Alice, Texas Alice is a city in and the county seat of Jim Wells County, Texas, Jim Wells County, Texas, United States, in the South Texas region of the state. The population was 19,104 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census. Alice was established in 18 ...
and educated in a small segregated schoolhouse, with children in four different grades in each of its two rooms. Because he had been taught by his grandfather how to read and do arithmetic, he skipped two grades of school. After the 1954
Brown v. Board of Education ''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the ...
decision, desegregating public schools, he was allowed to attend the formerly-all-white secondary schools in Alice, beginning in the ninth grade. Shortly afterwards, the Soviet launch of
Sputnik Sputnik 1 (, , ''Satellite 1''), sometimes referred to as simply Sputnik, was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 as part of the Soviet space progra ...
in 1957 and the ensuing
Space Race The Space Race (, ) was a 20th-century competition between the Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between t ...
led to the development of high school enrichment programs in science and mathematics, in which Johnson participated. Johnson earned a
National Merit Scholarship The National Merit Scholarship Program is a United States academic scholarship competition for recognition and university scholarships. The program is managed by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC), a privately funded not-for-profit ...
, which he used to attend the
University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public university, public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 stud ...
. Johnson writes that he "decided to major in math because it was one of the things I had enjoyed most in high school and there was no hope of my really understanding physics." His high school mathematics teacher, Larry O'Rear, had been advised by mathematics professor Howard B. Curtis, and Curtis also became a mentor to Johnson, with much of his mathematical education accomplished through independent study advised by Curtis. Another role model at Texas was
Vivienne Malone-Mayes Vivienne Lucille Malone-Mayes ( Malone; February 10, 1932 – June 9, 1995) was an American mathematician and professor. Malone-Mayes studied properties of functions, as well as methods of teaching mathematics.linear algebra Linear algebra is the branch of mathematics concerning linear equations such as :a_1x_1+\cdots +a_nx_n=b, linear maps such as :(x_1, \ldots, x_n) \mapsto a_1x_1+\cdots +a_nx_n, and their representations in vector spaces and through matrix (mathemat ...
course taken by Johnson. However, Johnson was advised to avoid the courses of
Robert Lee Moore Robert Lee Moore (November 14, 1882 – October 4, 1974) was an American mathematician who taught for many years at the University of Texas. He is known for his work in general topology, for the Moore method of teaching university mathematics, ...
, "the real head of the pure math department", who was famous for his mentorship of young mathematicians but also notorious for his racism. On completing his undergraduate studies, Curtis suggested that Johnson continue as a graduate student at Rice University. Rice's founding charter was to serve only the white citizens of Texas, but the university had determined to break both its racial and its state-based restrictions. Johnson was admitted to Rice in 1963, as its first African-American student, but his admission was delayed until 1964 by a lawsuit against the university by two alumni who did not want this change to happen. Johnson worked at Rice for a year as a research associate before becoming a regular graduate student. He then discovered that he was being paid less than the other graduate students, and almost left again, but continued after obtaining an NSF graduate fellowship. At Rice, Johnson met his future wife, Claudette, then a sociology student at
Texas Southern University Texas Southern University (Texas Southern or TSU) is a Public university, public Historically black colleges and universities, historically Black university in Houston. The university is a member school of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund an ...
, through their shared participation in protests during the Civil Rights Movement. He was advised by Jim Douglas, Jr., who moved to the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...
after Johnson's first year of study. Johnson moved with him, but returned to Rice to defend his dissertation on
Parabolic partial differential equation A parabolic partial differential equation is a type of partial differential equation (PDE). Parabolic PDEs are used to describe a wide variety of time-dependent phenomena in, for example, engineering science, quantum mechanics and financial ma ...
s in 1969.


Academic career

With the help of Douglas, Johnson obtained a position at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he became the first African-American mathematics professor. At Maryland, Johnson remained active in recruiting and retaining African-American students, especially from
historically black colleges and universities Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the intention of serving African Americans. Most are in the Southern U ...
. He served as a mentor to 23 doctoral students, most of them African-American and many of them female; an administrator at Maryland wrote of his work in this area that "the institutional success of our Department in educating underrepresented minorities has been based on the leadership of Ray Johnson". He remained at Maryland for 40 years (with a two-year interlude 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 ...
from 1976 to 1978) until returning to Rice in 2007.


Awards and honors

In 1986, the University of Maryland gave Johnson their Distinguished Minority Faculty Award. Johnson was the recipient of the 2006 Mentor Award for Lifetime Achievement of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...
. In 2015 he won the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring, given to 14 scholars nationally by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Johnson's work earned him recognition by
Mathematically Gifted & Black Mathematically Gifted & Black (MGB) is a website that features the accomplishments of black scholars in mathematical sciences. In addition to highlighting the work and lives of established mathematicians in the African Diaspora, the platform aims ...
as a Black History Month 2017 Honoree. Johnson was named a Fellow of the
American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...
, in the 2022 class of fellows, "for contributions to classical harmonic analysis, and for efforts toward increasing the participation of African Americans in mathematics".


References


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Raymond L. 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians 21st-century African-American scientists Rice University alumni University of Maryland, College Park faculty Rice University faculty 1943 births Living people 20th-century African-American academics 20th-century American academics 21st-century African-American academics 21st-century American academics Fellows of the American Mathematical Society