Njema Frazier

Last updated
Njema Frazier
Dr. Njema Frazier at Department of Energy.jpg
BornMarch 13, 1974 (1974-03-13) (age 49)
San Francisco, California
Alma mater Carnegie Mellon, Michigan State University
AwardsAlumni Achievement Award Spotlight from Carnegie Mellon University, The Black Engineer of the Year, Department of Defense Joint Civilian Service Commendation Award, Award for Distinguished Service to the National Nuclear Security Administration, Science Spectrum's Trailblazer Award
Scientific career
Fields Nuclear physics
Institutions Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration

Njema Frazier (born in San Francisco, California on March 13, 1974) is a nuclear physicist at the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) in Washington, D.C. [1]

Contents

Frazier has a bachelor's degree in physics from Carnegie Mellon University and a PhD in nuclear physics from Michigan State University. [2]

She is a member of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE). [2]

Early life and education

Dr. Frazier was born and raised in San Francisco, CA. She had an early interest in math, but it was not until attending a summer program that she discovered her aptitude for both math and science. About that summer, she has said, "I loved it so much that I became a student mentor after I aged out of the program." [2] She attended Carnegie Mellon University where she received a B.S. in 1992. After finishing her undergraduate degree, she went on to receive both an M.S. in physics and a Ph.D. in theoretical nuclear physics from Michigan State University (MSU), the top-ranked US nuclear physics program according to U.S. News & World Report. [3] While at MSU, she worked at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Lab (NSCL) focusing on "Properties of Shell-Model Wavefunctions at High Excitation Energies." [4]

Career

After receiving her Ph.D., she worked as a professional staff member for the Committee on Science at the U.S. House of Representatives for four years. [5] Dr. Frasier then started her career at the NNSA, working as a nuclear physicist from 2001 to 2016. She has also been an active member of the National Society of Black Engineers and served as National Alumni Chair in 2008 and National Leadership Institute Chairperson from 2010 to 2012. [2] [6] [7]  She is also the co-founder of the POWER (Professional Opportunities for Women at Energy Realized) Employee Resource Group for women at the Department of Energy (DOE). POWER supports women at the DOE professionally and personally as well as working to reach out to and inspire young women to enter STEM. [5]

At the NNSA, Dr. Frazier has held multiple positions, such as the acting director of the International Program Management Division, Acting Deputy Director of the Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) Division, and acting director of the Office of Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF).  In these divisions, she has worked on improving scientific knowledge for high energy density physics (HEDP) in relation to weapons.  Dr. Frazier has helped ensure the continued safe maintenance of nuclear weapon stockpiles. [8]  

As a senior scientist in the Defense Science Division, Dr. Njema Frazier leads the upkeep and organization of weapons-related science activities without needing to conduct explosive nuclear testing at Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, and Sandia National Laboratories. [7]

While working in the NNSA, Dr. Frazier has also served as a visiting professor at the National Defense University and created her own consulting company: Diversity Science, to create connections between science subject matter experts with those hiring in the public and private sector in order to get a more diverse applicant pool. [9]    

Awards and honors

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science</span> School for computer science in the United States

The School of Computer Science (SCS) at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US is a school for computer science established in 1988. It has been consistently ranked among the top computer science programs over the decades. As of 2022 U.S. News & World Report ranks the graduate program as tied for second with Stanford University and University of California, Berkeley. It is ranked second in the United States on Computer Science Open Rankings, which combines scores from multiple independent rankings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mellon College of Science</span> College of Carnegie Mellon University

The Mellon College of Science (MCS) is part of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US. The college is named for the Mellon family, founders of the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research, a predecessor of Carnegie Mellon University.

Lincoln Wolfenstein was an American particle physicist who studied the weak interaction. Wolfenstein was born in 1923 and obtained his PhD in 1949 from the University of Chicago. He retired from Carnegie Mellon University in 2000 after being a faculty member for 52 years. Despite being retired, he continued to come into work nearly every day.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manuela M. Veloso</span> Portuguese-American computer scientist

Manuela Maria Veloso is the Head of J.P. Morgan AI Research & Herbert A. Simon University Professor in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, where she was previously Head of the Machine Learning Department. She served as president of Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) until 2014, and the co-founder and a Past President of the RoboCup Federation. She is a fellow of AAAI, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). She is an international expert in artificial intelligence and robotics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karl Z. Morgan</span>

Karl Ziegler Morgan, was an American physicist who was one of the founders of the field of radiation health physics. He was director of health physics at Oak Ridge National Laboratory from the time in the Manhattan Project late 1940s until his retirement in 1972.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julius Ashkin</span> American nuclear physicist (1920–1982)

Julius Ashkin was a leader in experimental and theoretical physics known for furthering the evolution of particle physics from nuclear physics. As a theoretical physicist he made contributions in the fields of statistical mechanics, solid state physics, nuclear physics, and elementary particle physics. As an experimental physicist his main contributions concerned the passage of certain particles through solid matter and their subsequent decay. He was recognized for the quality of his research and teaching.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carnegie Mellon University Computational Biology Department</span>

The Computational Biology Department (CBD) is a division within the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located in the Gates-Hillman Center. Established in 2007 by Robert F. Murphy as the Lane Center for Computational Biology with funding from Raymond J. Lane and Stephanie Lane, CBD became a department within the School of Computer Science in 2016.

Rachel Mandelbaum is a professor of astrophysics at Carnegie Mellon University, studying cosmology and galactic evolution with a focus on dark matter and dark energy. Much of her work has used the phenomenon of gravitational lensing of galaxies and she has made significant improvements in the calibration of lensing parameters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Wayne</span> Biomedical engineer

Elizabeth Wayne is an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and former Postdoc at the Center for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Wayne was a 2017 TED fellow and is a member of a number of professional societies, including the National Society of Black Physicists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aziza Baccouche</span> American physicist and science filmmaker (1976–2021)

Zohra Aziza Baccouche was an American physicist and science filmmaker. She was an American Association for the Advancement of Science Mass Media Science and Engineering fellow at CNN and founder and CEO of media company Aziza Productions. Declared legally blind at the age of eight, Baccouche lost her sight due to a brain tumor at eight years old. She died in 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carol Frieze</span> American computer scientist

Carol Frieze works in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University as director of the Women@SCS and SCS4ALL professional organizations. She is co-author of a book on the successful efforts to attract and retain women in computing at Carnegie Mellon, where women represented 50% of the incoming class to the computer science major in fall 2018. She has been recognized by the A. Nico Habermann Award of the Computing Research Association and the AccessComputing Capacity Building Award.

Ciara Sivels is an American nuclear engineer at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. She was the first black woman to earn a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from the University of Michigan. She was named an IF/THEN Ambassador in 2019 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lisa M. Porter</span> American materials scientist

Lisa Marie Spellman Porter is an American materials scientist who is a Professor of Materials Science at Carnegie Mellon University. She works on new ways to process and characterise electronic materials. She has previously served as president of the American Vacuum Society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gabriela Hug</span> Swiss electrical engineer (born 1979)

Gabriela Hug-Glanzmann is a Swiss electrical engineer and an associate professor and Principal Investigator of the Power Systems Laboratory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich within the Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering. Hug studies the control and optimization of electrical power systems with a focus on sustainable energy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tina Kahniashvili</span> Georgian physicist

Tina Kahniashvili is a Georgian physicist and researcher. She studies theoretical cosmology, gravitational waves, theoretical astrophysics, and dark energy. She is a professor of physics and astronomy at Ilia State University, an associate research professor at Carnegie Mellon University, and is the main scientist at Abastumani Astrophysical Observatory.

Shirley Ho is an American astrophysicist and machine learning expert, currently at the Center for Computational Astrophysics at Flatiron Institute in NYC and at the New York University and the Carnegie Mellon University. Ho also has visiting appointment at Princeton University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Bookless</span> American scientist and government official

William Bookless is an American scientist and government official who served as the acting Under Secretary of Energy for Nuclear Security from 2020 to 2021. Bookless, who had previously served as deputy under secretary, assumed office on November 6, 2020 after the resignation of Lisa Gordon-Hagerty.

Michael Williams is an experimental particle physicist, faculty member at MIT, and inaugural Deputy Director of the NSF AI Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Interactions (IAIFI).

Sara A. Majetich is an American physicist and Professor of Physics at Carnegie Mellon University. Her work considers magnetic nanoparticles and nanostructures for application in spintronic devices. She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Scott Dodelson is an American physicist. He is a professor of physics at Carnegie Mellon University and chair of its physics department.

References

  1. ↑ "10 Questions for a Nuclear Physicist: Dr. Njema Frazier". Energy.gov. Retrieved 2016-05-16.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Leftwich, Siobhan (2014-03-10). "Women in STEM, Njema Frazier". nsbe.org. Retrieved 2016-05-16.
  3. ↑ "Best Nuclear Physics Programs".
  4. ↑ "Dr. Njema Frazier, Ph.D. - Physics".
  5. 1 2 "Dr. Njema Frazier".
  6. ↑ "NSBE National Advisor Njema Frazier Named to Ebony's 'Power 100'".
  7. 1 2 "ISTEM - College of Southern Maryland". stem.csmd.edu. Retrieved 2020-06-10.
  8. ↑ "Black Girls Rock! 17 | Girls Rock Tech". BET.com. Retrieved 2020-06-10.
  9. ↑ JuneSpring. "Dr. Njema Frazier!". Open GOV TV. Retrieved 2020-06-10.
  10. 1 2 University, Carnegie Mellon (2018). "2018 Alumni Achievement Award Spotlight: Njema Frazier - Engage with CMU - Carnegie Mellon University". www.cmu.edu. Retrieved 2020-06-10.
  11. ↑ TheGrio (February 1, 2011). "TheGrio's 100: Njema Frazier, nuclear weapons physicist developing future scientists". TheGrio. Retrieved 2020-06-10.
  12. ↑ "EBONY - 2015 Power 100". www.ebony.com. Retrieved 2020-06-10.
  13. ↑ "Dr. Njema Frazier". Energy.gov. Retrieved 2020-06-10.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.