Clayton W. Bates Jr., a professor emeritus of supplies science and engineering and {of electrical} engineering at Stanford College, a famous professional in photosensitive supplies, and a pioneering advocate for the inclusion of Black college students in STEM fields, died Feb. 18, 2024. He was 91.
Bates spent the primary 10 years of his profession in business, which included work in circuit design at RCA and design of nuclear reactor controls for the atomic submarine Seawolf at Ford Devices. He went on to change into a senior engineer at Varian Associates, the place he was one of many principal creators of an X-ray intensifier tube for diagnostic radiology that grew to become normal gear in hospitals around the globe. He gained Varian’s sabbatical award for 1967-68, which led him to England, the place he labored as a reader (affiliate professor) on the Imperial School of Science and Know-how in London.
That have ignited an curiosity in instructing, which Bates was in a position to fulfill when he was recruited to Stanford by pal and colleague Arthur Bienenstock, who had not too long ago joined the college to work within the space of X-ray science. The 2 have been pals as graduate college students at Harvard College, and later, whereas Bates was at Varian, reconnected to collaborate with one among Bienenstock’s graduate college students on a paper detailing using electron spectroscopy for chemical evaluation to grasp the properties of amorphous supplies.
“I believed he’d be excellent for the Stanford school, and I inspired Supplies Science to rent him,” Bienenstock says. “Invoice Spicer, a famend Stanford professor {of electrical} engineering, additionally knew of Clay, and was a giant advocate for him.”
Bates joined Stanford as an affiliate professor with a joint appointment in electrical engineering in 1972, incomes a full professorship in 1977. He was the primary Black school member to carry a tenure-track appointment in Stanford’s College of Engineering and to earn tenure on the college. His experience was in solid-state physics, and he was significantly desirous about photoelectronic supplies and gadgets. His work targeted on the unraveling of processes concerned within the interplay of photons and electrons with the very complicated supplies utilized in photoelectronic sensing gadgets. He was one of many first scientists to make use of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy on glasses to find out their digital construction. Pushing the frontiers of science was one among his greatest pleasures, he advised Stanford Information in a 1983 interview.
“That is what retains us going, the joy of the hunt,” he stated. “As long as you retain enthusiastic you’ll be able to maintain going. Some individuals name analysis a rat race, however I don’t know of anything on the planet I might fairly be doing.”
Throughout his time at Stanford, Bates taught undergraduate programs that he described as “introducing college students to the fascinating world of supplies utilized in our on a regular basis lives, and to the fundamental strategies of supplies analysis,” in addition to graduate programs in quantum mechanics and solid-state physics, together with a laboratory course on photoelectronic supplies and gadgets.
Among the many many college students Bates mentored was Bel Haba, presently senior fellow and vice chairman of Adeia Company, the place he focuses totally on microelectronic analysis. Bates served as Haba’s advisor for each his grasp’s diploma and PhD in supplies science and engineering from 1983 to 1989.
“He was greater than an advisor,” Haba stated. “I got here to Stanford from Algeria in North Africa. I didn’t communicate English nicely and didn’t perceive the tradition right here. Professor Bates guided me all the way in which till I felt snug, and after commencement we stayed in contact regardless of my transferring around the globe.”
Considerably, Bates was dedicated to serving as each a proper and casual advisor and mentor to Black college students and workers in science and engineering. In 1973, shortly after his arrival at Stanford, he and a bunch of graduate college students based the Stanford Society of Black Scientists and Engineers, an affiliate chapter of the Nationwide Society of Black Engineers. He and his spouse, Priscilla, labored as resident fellows for 3 years, serving first at Roble Corridor after which at Lagunita’s East Court docket, the place they guided the Black theme home.
Mark Gibson, lab providers coordinator on the Geballe Laboratory for Superior Supplies, had simply joined the Geballe workers when he first met Bates.
“I used to be 23 years outdated, naïve and feeling fairly intimidated,” he says. “You could possibly see that Clay was a senior professor and knew methods to talk with younger individuals, particularly a younger Black man. He made some extent to assist me perceive methods to navigate on this new place. I knew that Clay and I have been really a minority on this atmosphere, however he made it abundantly clear to me that no matter fears or uncertainty I had, above all I wanted to be myself and never be intimidated by something.
“He was reserved and conservative in how he carried out himself, however when he spoke, you had no selection however to hear,” Gibson stated. “He impressed me, and he was past brave. He had silent superiority.”
Bates’ son, Chris Bates, at all times acknowledged his father’s love of instructing and mentoring, he says.
“When my dad would categorical his love for the sciences, it at all times revolved across the college students,” he says. “It was his need to mentor and nurture younger good minds and assist give them the chance to vary the world by means of science. I don’t assume that his analysis, the patents he had, or the expertise he developed would have meant a lot to him if he hadn’t been in a position to share it with different individuals and have others construct on the work he was doing. These issues have been inextricably related.”
His father was additionally targeted on creating long-term change, he says.
“I feel he needed to pave a path for younger college students of coloration who’re within the sciences, and assist information them by means of the hurdles he’d confronted, and to assist arrange extra institutionalized equipment for college kids of coloration to have interaction with. He was pleased with doing that,” Bates stated.
Clayton Wilson Bates Jr. was born Sept. 5, 1932, in Harlem, New York. He earned his bachelor’s diploma in electrical engineering at Manhattan School in 1954, and a grasp’s diploma in electrical engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn in 1956. He earned a second grasp’s diploma in utilized physics from Harvard College in 1960 and went on to earn a PhD in physics from Washington College in St. Louis in 1966. In 1994, after turning into an emeritus professor at Stanford, Bates accepted a school appointment within the School of Engineering, Structure, and Pc Science at Howard College in Washington, D.C., the place he established the primary interdisciplinary graduate program in supplies science and engineering at a traditionally Black faculty or college. Two years later, having been appointed affiliate dean for graduate schooling and analysis, he established a broader set of interdisciplinary graduate packages at Howard.
He was predeceased by his spouse of 52 years, Priscilla S. Bates, and is survived by his three youngsters, Katherine Bates, Christopher Bates, and Naomi Haines, son-in-law Jason Haines, and grandson Jett Haines.
