CCB Spotlight: Robert Percy Barnes, M.S. '31 Ph.D. '33

February 21, 2022
Robert P. Barnes

This article is a part of "CCB Spotlight," a new ongoing series of articles that will report on achievements in research, education, career development, and community development among students, alumni, faculty, staff, groups and wider members of the chemistry and chemical biology community at Harvard. To nominate an individual and or a group to be spotlighted, please complete this short form or reach out to Communications Manager Yahya Chaudhry.

In honor of Black History Month, this article profiles alumnus Robert Percy Barnes, M.S. '31  Ph.D. '33 -- the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in chemistry at Harvard who went on to teach at Howard University and become a boardmember of the National Science Foundation.

Early Life: 

Robert Percy Barnes was born in Shiloh, Maryland, on February 26, 1898 to Mary Jane Thomas and Reverend William Humphrey Barnes. Growing up, Barnes attended the M Street High School, one of the nation's first high schools for African Americans, which represented an important development of Washington's education system. The M Street High School, which was renamed the Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in 1918 was “the jewel in the crown of the black school system” in Washington, DC, during the age of segregation. Dunbar’s teachers included several notable experts in their fields in part because of the limited professional opportunities for African Americans. Dunbar became “the place to go if you thought you were college material and wanted to be prepared to go,” and provided Barnes with a rigorous education that served him well as an undergraduate at Amherst College, a liberal arts college in Massachusetts. At Amherst, Barnes was both a star student in chemistry and a star athlete. The Olio, Amherst College's Yearbook, praised Barnes' success in track and field. Barnes graduated Phi Beta Kappa with his bachelors in 1921, and was appointed as a chemistry instructor after his graduation. Hence, Barnes was the first African American member of the Amherst faculty.  In 1922, he accepted a faculty position at Howard University, a Historically Black College or University (HBCU) located in Washington, DC. While teaching chemistry at Howard University, Barnes obtained a Fellowship (1928-1931) from the General Education Board,  a philanthropy founded by John D. Rockefeller, which allowed him to continue his education at Harvard University.  

At Harvard:

Barnes earned his M.S. and Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1931 and 1933, respectively. Barnes likely took courses taught by Professor James B. Conant, the future President of Harvard University and U.S. Ambassador to West Germany, who was then the Chair of the Department. Conant's research focused on free radicals, the chemical structure of chlorophyll, and the quantitative study of organic reactions, which attracted a throng of talented graduate students who went on to have brilliant careers. Louis F. Fieser, who later became a professor of chemisty at Harvard and gained fame for his research on blood-clotting agents and napalm, completed his dissertation on the oxidation-reduction potential of quinones under Conant. 

Barnes did extensive research on diktetones under the direction of well-respected organic chemist Professor Elmer P. Kohler, who was renowned for the creativity of his lab, his skill in fractional crystallization, and his interest "in the mechanisms of organic reactions, an unusual interest in a period in which structural chemistry predominated." About a decade earlier, Kohler had also taught Percy Lavon Julian, an African American organic chemist who would go on to have a successful career industry. In 1933, Barnes became the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in chemistry at Harvard. Kohler would continue to advise Barnes after he graduated. In 1934 Barnes and Kohler published a peer-reviewed article in the prestigious Journal of American Chemical Society, "The Tautomerism of Alpha Diketones. I. Benzyl Phenyl Diketone."

Beta Diketone

Career:

Barnes , became a full professor at Howard University in 1945, mentoring several African American chemistry graduate students including Lewis A. Gist Jr., Harold Delaney and George W. Reed. Delaney and Reed published their research efforts with Barnes in JACS.  Both, Delaney and Reed also worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II at University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory, which led to the development of the atomic bomb. Barnes also mentored African American women chemistry graduate students at Howard University, publishing articles with Leila S. Green and Gladys E. Pickney, who went on to work as a chemistry associate in Howard's chemistry department in the 1950s. 

National Science Board: 

National Science Foundation Board, 1951
National Science Foundation Board, 1951

In 1950, President Harry Truman appointed Barnes to the Board of the National Science Foundation (NSF), an independent federal agency which had been established by the National Science Foundation Act of 1950 "to promote the progress of science, to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare, and to secure the national defense." The 24-member board consisted of "persons eminent in the fields of basic sciences, medical science, engineering, agriculture, education and public affairs" from across the country. At its initial meeting at the White House in December 1950, the board elected James B. Conant as the Chair of the Board. In its first annual report, the Board stated that the agency was established in a "present emergency," requiring the NSF to become operationally ready to survey and help lead the country's science program's at the beginning of the Cold War.  Barnes was a member of the Board until 1958.

Legacy: 

Barnes retired from Howard University in 1967. As a researcher, he published dozens of papers in high-impact journals about his work in organic chemistry. Throughout his career as an educator and promotor of science education, he mentored a generation of African American chemistry students at Howard University, who went on to earn advanced degrees,  conduct impactful research, work on the most challenging problems of their day, and continue the tradition of African American excellence in chemistry. Barnes died on March 18, 1990 at his home in Washington, DC at the age of 92.

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