George E. Carruthers (Courtesy of SpaceFacts)
You already know Stephen Curry, Martin Luther King Jr. and Beyoncé Knowles or any number of famous and influential African Americans, but have you heard of Ohio-born, Chicago-raised physicist and inventor, George E. Alcorn Jr.?
George E. Carruthers (1939–2020) was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and was raised in South Side, Chicago, Illinois. He built his first telescope at the age of ten. He received a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering in 1961 and 1962, and a Ph.D. in physics in 1964 from the University of Illinois. He started employment with the Navy in 1964. Carruthers is the recipient of the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement medal for his work on the ultraviolet camera/spectrograph.
Carruthers was one of two naval research laboratory scientists responsible for the Apollo 16 program’s lunar surface ultraviolet camera/spectrograph, which was placed on the moon in April 1972. Carruthers designed the instrument, while William Conway adapted the camera for the lunar mission. The spectrographs, obtained from 11 targets, include the first photographs of the ultraviolet equatorial bands of atomic oxygen that girdle the earth.
Carruthers continued his work and became head of the Ultraviolet Measurements Group in the Space Science Division. He also taught an earth and space science course at Howard University beginning in 2002. He won the Arthur S. Fleming Award in 1971, the Outstanding Scientist Award in 2000, and the National Medal of Technology and Innovation in 2013. He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2004. George Carruthers died on December 26, 2020, from congestive heart failure in Washington, D.C.
Profiles of Carruthers, Curry, King, Knowles, and hundreds of famous and less well-known, but no less influential figures, can be found in the new history book, African American Almanac: 400 Years of Black Excellence by Lean’tin Bracks, Ph.D., retired professor of African American literature at Fisk University.
