Legacy Archive

Brooke Russell’s journey of firsts, in physics and at Yale

Yale News featured Wright Lab alum Brooke Russell, Ph.D. ‘19 in an article called “Brooke Russell’s journey of firsts, in physics and at Yale”.   Russell is the first black woman to earn a Ph.D. in physics from Yale and has recently joined the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California as an Owen Chamberlain Postdoctoral Fellow.   Her thesis was “An Electron Neutrino Appearance Search in MicroBooNE with 5 x 1019 POT” (advisor Bonnie Fleming). Russell also recently was awarded the 2019 Gertrude Scharff-Goldhaber Prize.

Wright Lab alumni spotlight on scientist and advocate Charles D. Brown II

Wright Lab alum Dr. Charles D. Brown II is an experimental quantum physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, a passionate science communicator, and a champion for Black Americans in STEM. He graduated from Yale Physics in 2019; his thesis was on the “Optical, Mechanical and Thermal Properties of Superfluid Liquid Helium Drops Magnetically-Levitated in Vacuum” (advisor Jack Harris).  We asked Dr. Brown a few questions about his research, outreach, and advocacy; see here for the interview.

APS Honors Edward Bouchet and the “Old Laboratory” in which he worked

headshot and building side by side Edward Alexander Bouchet was an American physicist and educator. He was the first black person to earn a Ph.D. from any American university, completing his dissertation in physics at Yale in 1876. In 2017, the American Physical Society (APS) recognized him and the former Sloane Laboratory as an APS Historic Site with a plaque that is now placed at the site of the “Old Laboratory” on the north face of Yale’s Vanderbilt Hall.  Read more.