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Charles Anderson, Meteorologist born

Charles E. Anderson

*Charles Edward Anderson was born on this date in 1919. He was a Black scientist specializing in meteorology.

Anderson was born on a farm in University City, near St. Louis, Missouri.  He graduated as valedictorian from Sumner High School in 1937. He received a Bachelor of Science from Lincoln University, Jefferson City, Missouri, in 1941.  He was certified in Meteorology (master's degree) from the University of Chicago in 1943.   He served as a captain in the Army during World War II and was the weather officer for the Tuskegee Airmen regiment.  Anderson earned a Master of Science in Chemistry in 1948 from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, New York.

In 1960, Anderson earned a Ph.D. in Meteorology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, Massachusetts.  He was the first Black to earn a Ph.D. in Meteorology. Dr. Anderson worked at the Chief Cloud Physics Branch at the Air Force Cambridge Research Center, Massachusetts, from 1948 to 1961.  From 1961 to 1965, Dr. Anderson worked at the Atmospheric Science Branch of Douglas Aircraft Company, California. He served as Director of the Office of Federal Coordination in Meteorology in the Environmental Science Service Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce from 1965 to 1966.  From 1967 to 1969, Anderson was appointed Professor of Space Science and Engineering.

From 1966 to 1987, he served as the Professor of Meteorology and Chairman of the Contemporary Trends Course at the University of Wisconsin.  In 1970, Professor Anderson was appointed Professor of Afro-American Studies and Chairman of the Meteorology Department.   In 1978, Professor Anderson became Associate Dean at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Dr. Anderson was also a professor in the Department of Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, N.C., from 1987 until he retired in 1990.

He was a significant contributor to a university program that has received national credit for its forecasting of severe storms. Anderson's research focused on Cloud and Aerosol Physics and Meteorology of other Planets. Dr. Charles Edward Anderson died on October 21, 1994.

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