4 Edward Bouchet, Ph.D
Edward Alexander Bouchet, Ph.D |
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Time period:September 15, 1852 – October 28, 1918 Subject:Physics and Education |
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Biography:Edward Bouchet was born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1852. His father was a formerly enslaved man from South Carolina. Both of Bouchet’s parents worked in labor jobs. Bouchet attended primary school at the Artisan Street Colored School. As a result of Bouchet’s academic acumen and guidance of his teacher, Edward Bouchet was admitted into the Hopkins School, a prestigious private college preparatory school. He graduated from Hopkins School as valedictorian in 1870 and went on to continue his studies at Yale University. In 1876 Edward Bouchet became the first person of color and the sixth American ever to earn a Ph.D in physics. Bouchet’s area of research was geometrical optics. His experiments focused on how light is absorbed, reflected, or bent as it travels through different glass materials, culminating in a Ph.D thesis titled “On Measuring Refractive Indices”. Bouchet was unable to find a university teaching or research position due to racial discrimination. He used his talents to teach physics and chemistry at the secondary level. Bouchet taught for 26 years at the Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Later he served as the academic director at St. Paul’s Normal and Industrial School in Lawrenceville, Virginia. |
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Summary of their contributions:Edward Bouchet researched the refractive indices of light and was the first black American to earn a Ph.D. in physics. The American Physics Society has created the Edward A. Bouchet Award which is given each year to an IBPOC physicist who has made a notable contribution to physics research. |
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Integration with the BC Secondary Science Curriculum:Science 8: properties and behaviors of light. Physics 11: generation and propagation of waves; properties and behaviors of waves. |
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References:https://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/bouchet.cfm https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/pt.6.6.20170915a/full/ https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2021/edward-bouchet-trailblazer-teacher-and-public-servant/ Photograph of Edward Bouchet is US public domain. |
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