Robert Henry “Pete” Bragg Jr. (August 11, 1919 – October 2, 2017), was a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in the

UC Berkeley College of Engineering The University of California, Berkeley College of Engineering (branded as Berkeley Engineering) is the public engineering school of the University of California, Berkeley (a land-grant research university in Berkeley, California). Established i ...

Education

Bragg attended

Tilden Technical High School Edward Tilden Career Community Academy High School (formerly known as Tilden Technical High School) is a public four-year high school bordered between the Canaryville and Fuller Park neighborhoods on the south side of Chicago, Illinois, United ...

and Woodrow Wilson Junior College in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

. Bragg served in the military during World War II, and then used the money allotted to him from the

G.I. Bill The G.I. Bill, formally the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I. (military), G.I.s). The original G.I. Bill expired in ...

to attend

Illinois Institute of Technology The Illinois Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Illinois Tech and IIT, is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Tracing its history to 1890, the present name was adopted upon the m ...

(IIT), and pursue a career in physics. Bragg earned a BS degree in 1949 and an MS degree in 1951 and subsequently worked for the Dover Electroplating Company and at the

Portland Cement Association Portland Cement Association is a non-profit organization that promotes the use of cement and concrete. The organization conducts and sponsors research, participates in setting cement manufacturing standards, and disseminates free designs of concre ...

Research Laboratory. He earned his PhD in physics from the

in 1960, and worked for Palo Alto Research Laboratory for the

Lockheed Missiles and Space Company Lockheed Missiles and Space Company (LMSC) was a unit of the Lockheed Corporation "Missiles, Space, and Electronics Systems Group." LMSC was started by Willis Hawkins who served as its president. After Lockheed merged with Martin-Marietta the ...

from 1960 to 1969.

Career

In 1969, the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...

hired him as a full professor, and he also became a principal investigator at the Materials and Molecular Division at

Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL, Berkeley Lab) is a federally funded research and development center in the hills of Berkeley, California, United States. Established in 1931 by the University of California (UC), the laboratory is spo ...

. His research was in the areas of

X-ray crystallography X-ray crystallography is the experimental science of determining the atomic and molecular structure of a crystal, in which the crystalline structure causes a beam of incident X-rays to Diffraction, diffract in specific directions. By measuring th ...

, eutectic solidification, and the properties of

carbon materials Carbon () is a chemical element; it has symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent—meaning that its atoms are able to form up to four covalent bonds due to its valence shell exhibiting 4 electrons. It belongs to group ...

. While at Berkeley, Bragg served on the policy advisory board of the Black Studies program and managed the Chancellor's Fellowship Program providing opportunities for minority faculty. Bragg retired from the Berkeley faculty in 1987, after a career that included service as Department Chair from 1978 to 1981. At the time he was one of six black faculty members. In retirement, Bragg was awarded a

Fulbright The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people ...

fellowship to conduct research at the

University of Ife Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) is a federal university in Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria. The university was founded in 1961 and classes commenced in October 1962 as the University of Ife by the regional government of Western Nigeria, which w ...

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

in 1992, and developed an exhibit for the Museum of African American Technology in

Oakland Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major West Coast port, Oakland is ...

. In 1995, Bragg became a fellow 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 ...

. He was not related to the British

Bragg Bragg may refer to: Places *Bragg City, Missouri, United States * Bragg, Texas, a ghost town, United States * Bragg, West Virginia, an unincorporated community, United States *Electoral district of Bragg, a state electoral district in South Austral ...

family of scientists.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bragg, Robert Henry 1919 births 2017 deaths American physicists 20th-century African-American scientists 21st-century African-American scientists Illinois Institute of Technology alumni Kennedy–King College alumni UC Berkeley College of Engineering faculty People from Jacksonville, Florida African-American physicists