Computational Physics Laboratory, Howard University

James Lindesay was born in Kansas City, Kansas, where he attended Douglass Elementary School, Northeast Junior High School, Sumner High School (Science Club member), and the Kansas City Kansas Community College (see KCK Teachers). He received his SB in physics from MIT (see MIT curriculum), where he did research in scattering theory with Francis Low, helped design and build drift chambers with Ulritch Becker and Samuel C.C. Ting, and wrote a (published) thesis on macroscopic quantum fluids working with Harry Morrison.  He received his MS from Stanford University (see Stanford curriculum) while studying the phenomenology of photo-production of hadrons with Stan Brodsky.  He received his PhD developing the theory for few particle relativistic dynamics working with H. Pierre Noyes at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC).  During his tenure as a graduate student, he received Stanford University’s highest teaching honor (Gores Award), as well as being given the honorary faculty position Acting Instructor by the faculty of the Stanford Physics Department. He was the Resident Fellow of Lagunita East Residences, and the second Resident Fellow of Ujamaa, the African-American Theme Residence at Stanford University.  

He received a Chancellors’s Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship from the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked on the applications of abelian and non-abelian local gauge theories to problems in quantum fluids. While at Berkeley, he was also a Workshop Leader in the Minority Scholars Program (1982-83).   In addition, he received a National Research Council / Ford Foundation Fellowship, where he worked at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) to develop the first relativistically covariant cluster decomposable unitary few particle scattering theory.  He has also served as the Director of the SLAC Summer Science Program /  DOE Energy Research Undergraduate Laboratory Fellowships Program / Summer Undergraduate Laboratory Internships Program on several occations (1979, 1983, 2001, 2005).  During 1985-87, he worked as a Peace Corps Volunteer as a Lecturer in Physics at the University of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.  This service resulted in his nomination by the agency in Tanzania for International Volunteer of the Year (1986). He was also an instructor in a United Nations Teacher Training Workshop during his stay as a volunteer.

He was appointed as an assistant professor of physics at Howard University from 1988-1994, where he founded, and continues to serve as the Director of the Computational Physics Laboratory at Howard University.  He was promoted to associate professor in 1994, and to full professor in 2008.   During his tenure he has supervised or co-supervised 5 post-doctoral associates, 22 graduate students, and 33 undergraduate students, resulting in 7 PhD’s, 6 MS theses, and 6 honors and BS theses.  He has been a visiting professor at Hampton University (1996-97), Stanford University (2000-01 and 2004-05), and a visiting faculty scientist at MIT (2006, 2007).  In addition, he was an adjunct professor of physics at Hampton University from 1997 until 2007.

He has received significant funding at Howard University as a principal investigator in the Condensed Matter Research Laboratory, the Computational Science and Engineering Research Center, the Materials Science Research Center of Excellence, the Computational Mathematical Sciences Collaborative Laboratories, the AT&T Multimedia Laboratory, and additionally as the Director for Student Development of the Center for the Study of Terrestrial and Extra-Terrestrial Atmospheres.  Other awards and honors include a Commitment to Higher Learning Award from the University of the District of Columbia (2002), induction as an honorary member into the Golden Key International Honor Society (2006), Academic Key's Who's Who in Science Higher Education (2006), Who's Who Among America's Teachers (2007), induction as an honorary member of Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society (2008), selection into Marquis Who's Who in America (2009), several Distinguished Faculty Author citations from Howard University, and several awards for exceptional service. He is a member of the National Society of Black Physicists, a member of the Sigma Pi Sigma Physics Honor Society, the Secretary of the International Association of Relativistic Dynamics, on the Executive Council of the Alternative Natural Philosophy Association, a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, and has been on the Scientific Advisory Boards of Vicus Biosciences, Inc., and NutriGene, Inc.  He has more than 70 journal and technical publications, has co-authored 2 books (including the World Scientific Press best seller ``An Introduction to Black Holes, Information, and the String Theory Revolution: The Holographic Universe” co-authored with Lenny Susskind, selected to the Scientific American Main Selection Book Club, and Ranked Top 5 Books in the Scientific American Book Club for 2005, the International Year of Physics) and 3 chapters in books, has 3 patent disclosures, and holds a patent for “Quantum Optical Methods of and Apparatuses for Writing Bragg Reflection Filters” (#6,434,298, Aug 2002).  His present research interests include cosmology, theoretical physics, biophysics, and foundations of physics.