Walter E. Massey | |
|---|---|
 Massey (left) meeting with President Jimmy Carter on February 28, 1980 | |
| 14th President of School of the Art Institute of Chicago | |
| In office 2010–2016 | |
| Preceded by | Wellington Reiter |
| Succeeded by | Elissa Tenny |
| 10th President of Morehouse College | |
| In office 1995–2007 | |
| Preceded by | Leroy Keith |
| Succeeded by | Robert Michael Franklin, Jr. |
| 9th Director of the National Science Foundation | |
| In office 1991–1993 | |
| President | George H. W. Bush |
| Preceded by | Erich Bloch |
| Succeeded by | Neal Francis Lane |
| Personal details | |
| Born | April 5, 1938 Hattiesburg, Mississippi |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Morehouse College Washington University in St. Louis |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Theoretical physics |
| Institutions | Argonne National Laboratory University of California University of Chicago Brown University University of Illinois |
| Thesis | Ground state of liquid helium - boson solutions for mass 3 and 4 (1966) |
| Doctoral advisor | Eugene Feenberg |
Walter Eugene Massey (born April 5, 1938) is an American educator, physicist, and executive. President Emeritus of both the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), and of Morehouse College, he is chairman of the board overseeing construction of the Giant Magellan Telescope.[1] During his long career, Massey has served as head of the National Science Foundation, director of Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), chairman of Bank of America, and as trustee chair of the City Colleges of Chicago.[2] He has also served in professorial and administrative posts at the University of California, University of Chicago, Brown University, and the University of Illinois.[3]
Born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi and raised in the Jim Crow era South, Massey became fascinated by mathematics as a youth. After attending Morehouse, an historically black college (HBCU), he pursued advanced study in physics earning his PhD from Washington University in St. Louis in the 1960s. He went on to post-graduate research at ANL near Chicago and joined the physics faculty at the University of Illinois, where African-American students sought his support and guidance in the 1960s struggle for civil rights. Massey decided to seek a better balance between research and activism as a physics professor at Brown University and was then invited back to head the ANL in the late 1970s. While he rose to become provost at the University of California in the 1990s, he decided to move when Morehouse asked him to come back to lead it in its mission as an HBCU. Following his retirement from Morehouse, and return to Chicago, he was called upon to head the Art Institute's school. He has served on multiple corporate and educational institution boards, and was asked to chair the board of Bank of America through a corporate transition in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. While attending a board meeting for the University of Chicago in the 2010s, he was recruited to take on the Giant Magellan Telescope project.[4]
Massey is the only individual to have served as both President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and as Chair of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design (AICAD). Additionally, Massey is the only individual to have received both the Enrico Fermi Award for Science and Technology from the Chicago Historical Society and the Public Humanities Award from Illinois Humanities. He is an elected member of both the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
- ^ (SAIC), School of the Art Institute of Chicago. "Mission and Governance: About Our Chancellor - School of the Art Institute of Chicago". www.saic.edu. Retrieved April 13, 2018.
- ^ "City Colleges of Chicago - Mayor Emanuel Announces Walter E. Massey to Serve as the New Chair of the City Colleges of Chicago Board of Trustees". www.ccc.edu. Retrieved April 13, 2018.
- ^ "Walter E. Massey". University of Chicago.
- ^ Miller, Katrina (March 19, 2024). "Walter Massey, a Physicist With a Higher Calling: He broke barriers as the first Black physicist in nearly every role. But his identity made him reach for dreams beyond his career as a scientist". New York Times. Retrieved March 19, 2024.