"Charles "Edward Anderson"(August 13,1919-October 21,1994)

Was the first African American to earn a P.h.D. in Meteorology.He began

his career as a weather officer for the Army Air Forces during World War II and served with the famous Tuskegee Airmen.He later became a professor and researcher into cumulus clouds,severe stroms,and tornadoes.By the end of his career Charles had gained national recognition for his use of satellite imagery to forecast severe storms.He was born on a farm in Clayton,Missouri.His mama as from Fulton, Mississippi,and his daddy was from northern Mississippi.His paternal granddaddy was a wealthy landowner in the state.While his daddy wanted to follow in his granddaddy's business,the Jim Crow laws at that time were very oppressive,so he decided to move to Missouri.Charles parents met in St.Louis.They young married couple brought a farm in Clayton,Missouri,where they raised their seven children.When the Great Depression hit the United States in 1929,the family moved back to St.Louis.Even though Charles spent much of his youth on a farm,his mama exposed her children to a wide range of activities.He recalled spending a lot of time at art museums,botanical gardens,the zoo,and the theater.His frequently read to her children and Charles became an avid reader himself.While living on the farm,he received a collection of more than one hundred books from an older boy in the area,and he spent his afternoons devouring the books.Once the Andersons moved to the city,Charles spent much of his free time at the public library.As a young child Charles Charles was interested in just about everything.When he started high school,he became increasingly drawn to science.His teachers had high expectations for him because they had already taught his three older sisters,who had excelled academically.Charles lived up to these expectations,and graduated as the valedictorian of the class of 1937 at Summer High School.He received a scholarship to study at Lincoln University in Jefferson City,Missouri,where he earned a bachelor of science degree in chemistry in 1941,and graduated third in his class.As an undergraduate,Charles met his future wife,fellow student Marjorie,who was from Cary,North Carolina.
Charles graduated from college in the midst of World War II,and joined the U.S. Army Air Forces.
At that time,the Air Force was not a separate branch of the military but was a part of the Army.It was through this
experience that he became a meteorologist."To tell the you the truth,...it was mainly by process of elimination,"Charles told Earl Droessler,in an interview conducted for the American Meteorological Society."I wanted to became a member of the Army Air Corps and i looked over the physical
requirements to join the Army Air Corps as a cadet and it seemed as the only option open to me was that of Meteorology." Charles was sent to study at the University of Chicago from July of 1942 until May of 1943,along with 150 cadets.He was subjected to a demanding schedule that included 18-21 credit hours of classes a quarter,in addition to physical education,weapons training,and Army intelligence.After his graduation Charles wanted to study tropical meteorology in Puerto Rico,
instead was assigned to be a weather officer for the Tuskegee Airmen,the first African American airmen in the United States.Before
relocating to Tuskegee,Alabama,Charles made a brief stop in St.Louis to marry Marjorie.
The Tuskegee Airmen were assigned to escort bomber flights,over Italy,Austria,& southern Germany.
They earned the distinctive reputation of never losing a bomber."All in that was an interesting experience
because there we had an all-black training operation to produce fighter pilots and bomber pilots and crews at this one place in the country,"Charles told Earl."The Army Air Corps was segregated at that time so these fellows couldn't get training anywhere else." After his service in Tuskegee,Charles served as a squadron weather officer,training replacement pilots at Selfridge Field,Michigan,Walterboro,South Carolina,Gotman field,Kentucky,& Lockbourne Air Force Base in Ohio.
By that time the war was over and the Army Air Corps was reducing its ranks,Charles took advantage of an opportunity to study high poly chemistry in Brooklyn,where he earned a master of science degree.Charles was still in the Army Air Corps and was assigned to a research and development position at Watson Laboratories in New Jersey.He oversaw the activities of notable German scientists,such as
Rudolph Penndorf,Max Diem,Heinz Lettau,and Eberhardt Wahl,who emigrated to the United States after the war.In 1949 Charles became part of a startup for the Geophysics Research Laboratory in Boston.
Charles began working in aerosols at this time and became involved in
promoting Air Force research activities.In particular,Charles worked with Japanese researchers studying vacuum ultraviolet spectroscopy,which helped researchers understand how chemical reactions took place in the high atmosphere because of vacuum conditions.
While at the Geophysics Research Laboratory in the early 1950s,Charles became extensively involved in cloud research.He served as a cloud physics project officer for Project Greenhouse,which involved exploding warheads from towers to test the radioactivity of the debris.He also developed a technique to make the trails of jet aircraft so they were no longer visible in the sky.During this time Charles edited a volume called
Cumulus Dyanamics,which looked at the physics of how cumulus clouds
developed,and also wrote a publication on cloud seeding.Charles interesting work on clouds led him to further his education in the field.
In 1955 he enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,writing a dissertation called "A Study of the Pulsating Growth of Cumulus Clouds," and earning his Ph.D. in 1960.He was the first African American male to earn a Ph.D in meteorology.
After graduation Charles moved to Los Angeles to join Douglass Aircraft Missiles and Space Systems Divisions,where he headed the atmospheric analysis group."I though this was a great challenge because it
would put me into the space age and all the hoopla and glamour surrounding that new era," Charles explained to the American Meterological  Society.The group was responsible for providing information about the structure of the atmosphere in order to determine launch dates for spacecraft.While at Douglass,Charles also worked on a mission to track an eclipse.In 1963 he joined several other
scientists in a plane that flew a parallel course to the sun moving across the earth,and the experience was filmed for National Geographic.Charles also became involved with IBM computers at Douglass and he built on the work of Joanne Simpson to produce the first moist cloud model on a computer.He decided to leave Douglass to return to meteorology.From 1965-1966 he worked in Washington,D.C.,as the director of the Office of Federal Coordination in Meteorology in the Environment Science Service Administration,part,of the U.S.Department of Commerce.In this position Charles established the first World Weather Watch program.
Despite her husband's satisfying work,Majorie did not want to raise their two daughters in Washington,D.C.,Charles began began looking for job opportunities elsewhere.He was approached by Vern Suomi to come to the University of Wisconsin as the assistant director of Vern's Charles was offered the position of a full professor with tenure,an offer he could not refuse.He became the first tenured African American professor at the University of Wisconsin.
In 1966 Charles began his 20-year career at the University of Wisconsin."When i first went i set up their
cloud physics activity,but for the first few years my main activity was getting the Space Sciennce and Engineering Center off the ground," Charles told earl."When i arrived it consisted of a big room that Vern Suomi occupied and he had this huge stack of papers & books in the middle of the floor.My first task was to hire a secretary to help get things organized."After spending a few years administering the new center,Charles was able to focus again on his research and teaching.In 1970 he participated in the Northeast hail Research Experiment,where he spent three or four summers in Colorado studying hailbaring clouds,at a time when scientists were first able to use satellite data research.Charles took full advantage of the satellite data as well as the growing field of computer science in order to study storms & tornadoes.During his career at Wisconsin,Charles was professor of space and engineering,professor of meteorology,chairman of the Contemporary Trend course,chairman of the Afro-American studies Department,chairman of the Meteorology Department.In 1978 he was appointed associate dean of the University.
In 1987 Charles moved to North Carolina State University in Raleigh where he became a professor in the Department of Marine,Earth,and Atmospheric Sciences.Charles continued to use satellite images to study
severe storms and tornadoes.While remote sensing had been used for oceanography at North Carolina State,Charles applied the technology to the field of meteorology.He revolutionized the field by introducing
new analytical schemes and high powered statistics,gaining national recognition for storm forecasting.
In particular,Charles discovered ways to identify tornadic storms by the way they spin.This led to scientists'ability to predict severe stroms and tornadoes up to an hour before they arrived.During his tenure at North Carolina State University,Charles gained a reputation for his professional demeanor and personal decorum.Dr.Len Pietrafesa,who was the head of the Department of Marine,Earth,and Atmospheric Sciences,while Charles was there,told Contemporary Black Biography (CBB) that "Charlie had impeccably high standards for both his students and colleagues." According to Dr.Len,Charles challenged fellow faculty
members to strive for high quality research and to truly productive members of the research community.Charles officially retired from North Carolina State in 1990.he kept working part-time as part of the Southeast Severe Storms Consortium.In the interview with
Eric,Charles stated that he planned to continue to work as he was healthy."I just don't view myself as a senior citizen committed to sitting on the front porch in a rocking chair," Charles explained.Charles continued working until his death from cancer.