Engineering at Illinois alumnus to receive National Technology Medal

Next week, President Barack Obama will present College of Engineering alumnus George R. Carruthers with the National Medal of Technology and Innovation at the White House.

A young George Carruthers (r) with the far ultraviolet camera spectrograph he developed. Photo courtesy of the Office of Naval Research Laboratory.

Carruthers, among the earliest African Americans to earn degrees in nuclear engineering (MS 1962) and aerospace engineering (BS 1961, PhD 1964), is one of seven scientists nationwide to be recognized with the National Medal of Technology.

Influenced by the Space Race of the late 1950s and 1960s, Carruthers, a scientist at the Office of Naval Research Laboratory (ONRL), performed groundbreaking work in far ultraviolet astronomy. His efforts led to a patent for pioneering instrumentation, an image convertor for detecting electromagnetic radiation, especially in short wave lengths. In 1970 he gained international attention when the photographs from his rocket-borne telescope of ultraviolet star radiation brought long-sought proof that hydrogen atoms are converted to molecules in dust clouds in interstellar space and catalyze the birth of stars. In 1972 his far ultraviolet camera spectrograph was sent to the moon with the Apollo 16 mission, allowing ONRL to take readings of and understand objects and elements in space that are unrecognizable to the naked eye. The camera, which remains on the moon, provided views of stars and solar systems millions of miles away.

A second version of the camera was sent on the 1974 SkyLab space flight to study comets, and was used to observe Halley's, West's and Kohoutek's comets. Carruthers’ instruments were involved in capturing an image of a Leonid shower meteor entering the earth’s atmosphere, the first time a meteor has been imaged in the far ultraviolet from a space-borne camera.

In 1993, U.S. Black Engineer magazine named Carruthers among the first 100 recipients of the Black Engineer of the Year award. As the head of the Space Science Division’s Ultraviolet Measurements Group, Carruthers in the year 2000 received the first Outstanding Scientist Award from the National Institute of Science, which provides for the exchange of scientific information and the presentation of scholarly research papers by science students and faculty members primarily from Historically Black Colleges and Universities. BlackEngineer.com in 2010 listed Carruthers among the 50 Most Important Blacks in Research Science .

Carruthers received the Outstanding Recent Alumnus Award from the Department of Aerospace Engineering in 1974, and the College of Engineering at Illinois Alumni Award for Distinguished Service in 1975. Other honors Carruthers has received include:

• 1970, The George Washington University’s Arthur S. Flemming Award, recognizing outstanding men and women in the federal government

• 1972, National Aeronautics and Space Administration Exceptional Achievement Scientific Award

• 1973, The American Astronomical Society’s Helen B. Warner Prize for Astronomy

• 2003, Induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

As a youngster growing up in Milford, Ohio, Carruthers enjoyed reading science fiction and constructed model rockets with the help of his father, a civil engineer. At the age of 10, Carruthers built his first telescope with a cardboard tube and a lens he purchased through mail-order. He was 12 when the family moved to Chicago following his father’s death. There, Carruthers joined the Chicago Rocket Society and frequented libraries and museums, including the Adler Planetarium.

Carruthers has been active in many groups aimed at encouraging African Americans to be technologically literate and become involved in science and technology careers. Among them have been the National Technical Association, the National Society of Black Physicists, Project SMART, and NASA’s District of Columbia Space Grant Consortium.
________________________

Writer: Susan Mumm, Department of Aerospace Engineering & Department of Nuclear, Radiological, and Plasma Engineering, 217/244-5382.