Trailblazers in Black History: Elmer Samuel Imes

 

Physicist Elmer Samuel Imes was born on October 12, 1883 in Memphis, Tennessee. His father, Benjamin, was a minister and mother, Elizabeth, was a homemaker. Both parents were college educated, with his father having graduated from Oberlin College. His family lived in and he went to school in several towns in Ohio and Alabama before he graduated from the Agricultural and Mechanical High School (Alabama). Imes then went on to attend Fisk University, earning a B.A. in General Science. After Fisk, he taught math and physics at several black colleges before eventually returning to Fisk in 1910 as a graduate student and math instructor. After receiving his M.A. from Fisk in 1915, he was accepted into the University of Michigan Ph.D. program in physics.

At Michigan, Imes research and doctoral thesis focused on applying infrared spectroscopy to study the properties of atoms and molecules. This research led to two publications describing how molecules emit infrared light waves in discrete quanta. These findings provided early verification of quantum theory (branch of physics dealing with the nature of sub-atomic particles). Imes earned his Ph.D. in Physics at Michigan in 1918 - becoming the second African-American to earn a Ph.D. in Physics after Edward Bouchet (in 1876 at Yale University). 

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Source: http://www.african-american-scientists.com