Black Excellence Oral History with Robert Green, June 30, 2021 (Ms2024-072)

Kregg Quarles: Okay. My name is Kregg Quarles, and I am interviewing Dr. Robert Green for the Black Excellence in STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] oral history project. Today is June 30, 2021. So, thank you for agreeing to interview with us and to do this oral history project with us. We’re looking forward to hearing your story. To start off, if you could tell me your full name and date of birth for the record.

Robert Green: Date of birth? Okay. Do I have to give the year?

Kregg: If you wouldn’t mind.

Robert: All right. Full name: Robert Green. Date of birth: July 18th--got a birthday coming up--1980.

Kregg: All right.

Robert: 1980s baby.

Kregg: 1980s baby. Yeah; same here. You know it!

Robert: There you go.

Kregg: So, if you could, tell me a little bit about your childhood, what it 00:01:00was like growing up and also a little bit about your parents--what they did as well.

Robert: All right. So, early childhood. I’m from Johns Island, South Carolina, which is just outside of Charleston. I mean, you could consider it Charleston, South Carolina now. You know, with the social media influence of, let’s say, Kwame Brown. We’re known as the Gullah-Geechee people of South Carolina. So, anytime you hear the word Geechee-Gullah or Gullah-Geechee we’re talking about the native 00:02:00Black people of the South Carolina coast. So, it extends from the easternmost part of North Carolina, all of South Carolina coast, southern Georgia coast to North Florida, I do believe. That’s us. Descendants of the transatlantic slave trade, if you will. Charleston right now is much more developed. I grew up in the country. Typical southern customs, except we eat a lot more seafood than the traditional southerner. My parents, both of them actually, are college-educated. My dad went to Wilberforce University, in Wilberforce, Ohio, which is across from Central State University. He was an economics major. My mom, she went to Knox College first and then transferred to Voorhees College in Denmark, 00:03:00South Carolina. She majored in history. So, between an economics major and a history major, both of them are trying to figure out how in the world they got a young scientist on their hands. I just ended up liking science. I took to it. Science and math was my thing. More analytical than, I guess, most kids at the time. But, my mom, due to her, I guess, social studies-type--or humanities-type--background, I still 00:04:00developed an affinity for geography and geopolitical issues. I paid probably a little bit too much attention to East and West Germany coming back together to form one Germany, the breakup of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, and all this other stuff. Yeah. So, I got all that stuff from my mom. But, on the flip side, I used to do--well, not get in trouble--but my love for science and, let’s say, electronics and things of that nature--I always wanted to know how things work. So, colored TVs, VCRs, I used to open them up while they were away at work and look at the internal components and try to see how the tape went in there and stuff like that and then tried to put everything back before 00:05:00they got home. That’s, that’s the stuff I used to do.

Kregg: How did that work out? Did you actually get to-

Robert: No, no, no. I’m one hundred percent. I didn’t mess up. There were no VCR tapes that got chewed up or anything like that. No. I was good to go. But, I played football as a kid, played soccer as a kid, climbed a lot of trees, walked in the woods for hours on end. But, you could do that back in the day without the fear of being, let’s say, abducted or anything like that. Sure those things happened, but, I mean, it was so few and far between where no one really paid attention too much to, what we call it today, human trafficking. Long as you made home by dinner time you were good.

Kregg: Okay. 00:06:00Were other kids doing the same things as you, or…?

Robert: Well, I played sports with a lot of kids. Football’s really big in that area. I don’t think basketball was as big as it is now. Like, right now, Johns Island still doesn’t have an Amateur Athletic Union team, which I think is ridiculous because we have a lot of athletes that come from that part, but we’re more known for football than anything else. And back in the day, on the low, we had a lot of really talented Black soccer players. We had a whole all-Black soccer club. Yeah. It’s called Ebony City Soccer Club.

Kregg: Wow!

Robert: It’s ridiculous.

Kregg: Yeah; 00:07:00that’s different.

Robert: Yeah. Who knew?

Kregg: Right, right! So, what did your parents do for work?

Robert: All right. So, my mom was a teacher. She taught for forty-something years in Charleston County School District. My dad, he worked for Cummins and then later on Bosch, the automotive company. He retired from there.

Kregg: Okay, cool. So, what were some of your earliest memories, then, coming from that kind of background? You mentioned the Geechee-Gullah. Seems like there’s a lot of culture there. Other than taking things apart and just having curiosity, what are some of your earliest memories where you started getting interested in science?

Robert: Okay. So, I remember 00:08:00the early part of my elementary school, I would be placed with everybody else, and then I wasn’t. I’d be in a group by myself because I would have already read chapters ahead, and I don’t know--well, that may have been a function of my mom, but I could grasp things really, really quickly without me thinking about trying to learn more. I just kind of did it. It wasn’t forced. So, after a while, for a part of the day, I would go to another school for--it was the SAIL Program, Students Active In Learning, where it’s like a new standard gifted and talented program where you had designated sites for advanced students to go to different schools because that’s where the advanced programs were housed. And then later on, I went to the magnet middle school, 00:09:00and then later on, the magnet high school for Charleston County. Interestingly enough, the magnet high school is the number two public school in the nation. So, Academic Magnet High School in North Charleston, South Carolina.

Kregg: Wow! Okay. All right. So, I take it that was just easy?

Robert: Well, I had friends. We were all kinda--I’ll say you could call it super nerdy; call it just naturally inquisitive. All of us had our things. I have a lot of friends who are lawyers, quite a few who are physicians, and quite a few who are professors. So, it’s just one of those things. And we’re kinda everywhere. Some people stayed local, of course. 00:10:00So, one of my good friends, I think, just came back from England or something like that. He was teaching in England or Germany or something like that. And we all kept up with one another, which I think is kinda cool because, more often than not, you wait on reunions and things like that.

Kregg: Yeah, I don’t think I kept in touch with my friends from school like that.

Robert: But, you know what it is? I think it’s one of the rare, rare times where I think most of the people are doing 00:11:00something that you can envision for them in high school, probably with the exception of me, and I’m gonna tell you why. I hated school so much when I was in school. Not because of the educational process itself, but I think a lot of teachers, administrators didn’t know how to necessarily take…me. You know? Just as an individual.

Kregg: Can you elaborate on that?

Robert: Yeah. So, give you an example. If I have a question, me asking the question is me questioning authority, but I really want to know why certain things actually occur versus saying, 00:12:00why do I have to do this? This is unjust. So, when I look at the difference in how teachers or administrators would respond to me versus someone else, I just let the other people ask. There’s more than one way to skin a cat.

Kregg: Yeah. So, was it just you and your personality, in particular, that it was, or…?

Robert: I don’t know what it was. And I mean, I can always speculate, but it’s never a hundred percent. I’ll give you another example. 00:13:00I played middle school basketball my eighth grade year, right? Before basketball season, I would never get in trouble. During basketball season, I would never get in trouble. After basketball season, I always got in trouble for doing the exact same thing.

Kregg: That’s interesting.

Robert: Yeah. you know.

Kregg: How do you make sense of it now? Let’s be real. What do you really think it is? You’re a pretty wise, knowledgeable man.

Robert: Hey, man. You know…it seems like we live in a society where we overpenalize young Black men with a mind of their own. You don’t have to do anything worse. 00:14:00You could actually do something less severe and be penalized more, and it’s just like our criminal justice system now.

Kregg: Okay. All right. I personally didn’t wanna--

Robert: But, if you think about it, in the school system, there are a lot of parallels there, so when you hear the whole school-to-prison pipeline thing, they’re preparing you to enter the prison system. It’s not for 00:15:00young Black men who necessarily misbehave or do something severe. You could just speak out of turn, and a teacher will say, well, no one called on you. And the way that they respond to you is like, ooh, why so aggressive? I didn’t do anything any different than Marcus or Molly or Chad; why all the extra aggression toward me? You know, when everyone in the class is yelling; everyone wants to be acknowledged and prove how smart they are. However, when I’m the eager kid to want to express how much I know, and I blurt out an answer--you’re what, ten, eleven years old? No ten or eleven year old is just gonna be quiet on 00:16:00command. It’s just not gonna happen, right? You learn that when you have kids. And they send you to in-school suspension for doing something that’s normal. And you wanna be engaged, and then over time, you become more reclusive; you’re more hesitant in wanting to express yourself and wanting to prove how intelligent you are compared to your white counterparts. Over time, I’d say between sixth grade and tenth grade, it became less and less cool to prove how intelligent you are, so you get attention in other ways that are not necessarily natural for you.

Kregg: Gotcha. Gotcha. Was that the effect that it had on you, or did you have a different 00:17:00response? Did you just keep raising your hand?

Robert: That whole experience…that almost forced me to wanna attend an HBCU [historically Black colleges and universities] as an undergraduate because it’s almost like…at least in my case, this is how I felt. Because I was a little bit more advanced than my Black counterparts, 00:18:00they’re like, oh, you’re different; you’re a different cat. You wanna be white. So, I’m too white for the Black world. Okay, but then when I go to the white school--or the advanced school--I’m too Black for the white world. So, I’m caught in being…I learned early that I’m gonna be on this little island for a while, and from there, I learned to be self-sufficient. No one else was responsible for getting the things that I needed to get but me because, again, I’m in this educational purgatory socially. When it comes to doing things on paper 00:19:00and doing the actual schoolwork--the schoolwork itself is easy. It’s all the other stuff that comes with it.

Kregg: Interesting. I mean, I can relate. I was definitely one of the only Black kids in the advanced math class or the advanced physics class--or just the physics class. So, yeah, I can relate. I can relate. That was, actually, one of the reasons I went to Morehouse College. I put that in my entrance letter. I think I had the word Black bolded, capitalized like five times in my essay. Like, I just wanna be around Black people that are also doing the same thing.

Robert: Yeah. Absolutely.

Kregg: So, it’s a good segue. So, 00:20:00from high school, you went to Morehouse College?

Robert: Yep. Majored in chemistry.

Kregg: Okay. Yeah. Tell me tell me about that. So, you came in majoring in chemistry… Robert: I majored in chemistry. I majored in chemistry because I didn’t necessarily know what my career goal would be. My mom and dad always envisioned that I would be a physician or something like that. And so…for a while I thought I wanted to do that, too. But, I saw NASA [the National Aeronautics and Space Administration] Scholars there. No one ever approached me about being a NASA Scholar or even working for NASA. So, coming in I was like, okay, well, I’m gonna major in biology, and then I started meeting people right before registration freshman year. I’m like, NASA Scholar? NASA? Like, space NASA? Oh, there are NASA Scholars. Cool. And I’m like, this NASA thing sounds interesting; 00:21:00I’m gonna major in something that is pretty flexible. I could go to medical school; I could go work for NASA, or I could just do anything else. So, that’s how I ended up in chemistry. Yeah. Because I thought it would have been too difficult for me to major in physics and go to medical school. But, of course, things change over time, and now, you can do engineering in medicine. So, now, being a physics major and going to medical school is not too foreign of a concept, right? We’re talking about, what, 1998? So, now, science has become 00:22:00more interdisciplinary where you could take a couple more classes and then more easily make that transition.

Kregg: Nice. So, how did you like chemistry? Tell me about that experience. Did you fall in love right away? Did it live up to what you were expecting?

Robert: The faculty, I thought, were an interesting cast of characters because I don’t think any two faculty members were even close to being alike. They had their own thing. I mean, from someone like, say, Dr. Vijay freshman year. Dr. Waugh, Dr. Han, Dr. King, Dr. Story, Dr. Payne, Mr. Pambi, Mr. Mack. All of those guys. All of them are…different, but their love for chemistry was all the same, 00:23:00and you could see it in each one of those classes. When it came to chemistry and trying to prepare us for graduate studies, or whatever it is that we wanted to do, you could see the love, even though they were all different people from different subdisciplines of chemistry. I always thought that that was a cool thing to see.

Kregg: Yeah, because, I mean, I remember a lot of people wanted took chemistry, and there was a lot of complaints that it was too hard. Was it challenging for you? So, 00:24:00you saw the love, did you have that love too?

Robert: Dr. Story gave me fits. He did. I think he may have been the only professor that I would kinda rub my hands on my pants like, oh, man, I don’t know; I don’t know about this. He was the only one. I was like, man, I’m gonna pray extra hard this Sunday! But, I made it, so that’s all good. But, for everyone else…it’s amazing to see. From the beginning of class, let’s say, freshman 00:25:00year or--general chemistry. All right. So, in general chemistry, you have chemistry majors; you have biology majors; you have some physics majors, right? So, if you’re a science major, you’re taking Chemistry I, right? From exam one to exam two, or from the beginning of the class to right after exam one, let’s say, you have eighty people in the class. After exam one, you’re going from eighty to forty. After exam two, you’re going from, let’s say, forty to thirty-five, thirty. And then right before that withdrawal deadline, you’re gonna end up with, like, eighteen, 00:26:00 twenty.

Kregg: So, you were a survivor then, huh?

Robert: Oh yeah, man! Oh, yeah.

Kregg: So, what was it? Was it just the fact that this subject gave you job prospects? What made you…?

Robert: No, I liked the rush of problem-solving. That’s what it was. Because my experience with biology at that point was pure memorization, and at the time, I could memorize everything, so there was no rush there because I know that I can memorize stuff, terms and processes. But, chemistry, depending on what you’re encountering, 00:27:00it could change. You know? It’s not the same approach for every single problem. You have to treat things different; treat things as they come, then know how to deal with it. So, for me, I always tell my students, chemistry is life, right? So, how you approach a chemistry class and how you survive a chemistry class is parallel to how you will survive life. When you have a primary functional group, you don’t treat it as the same thing as having a secondary functional group or some kind of hydrocarbon or something like that. You have to treat it differently. So, the different people that you meet, you can’t treat them the same way all the time. Otherwise, you’ll end up in trouble 00:28:00because each person brings something different to the table or has a different set of experiences that will impact your life in one way or another.

Kregg: All right, wise man!

Robert: Hey, man! I didn’t get here overnight, though.

Kregg: Right. So, speaking of, were there any other--that was undergraduate, right? I mean, was it smooth sailing, or did you have any kind of significant challenges? Would they be accurate if they said, Robert, you know, he went through chemistry, went through Morehouse, and everything was just easy-peasy and fun?

Robert: Well, I’ll say this. The one regret that I had 00:29:00in undergraduate, I don’t think I pushed hard enough. I got through the program, to me, relatively easy. Like, I one hundred percent relied on my natural ability. Yeah, there were times where I had to study, but I didn’t develop a study regimen until I got to graduate school. I never learned how to study up until graduate school. Now, that’s not to say that Morehouse was easy, okay? ‘Cause it wasn’t. But…I’m trying to say this without sounding awful…I had more natural ability than others 00:30:00to grab information. I’ll say that.

Kregg: What natural abilities would those have been?

Robert: Well, like I said, I could memorize things; I could not take notes, and because I’m there, and I’m present--like, I never missed class. I don’t think I’ve ever skipped a class, and by me sitting down and paying attention in class, I didn’t have to take a whole lot of notes. Like, I found some old notebooks of mine from undergraduate, and I’m like, this is what I wrote down? I can’t look at my old notebooks and give that to somebody and say, hey, study this, and you’ll be fine. No, I can’t do that because I only wrote down the things that 00:31:00may have taken a little bit more time to grasp in that moment because either I was too sleepy or something like that. So, it’s not sequential. It’s just star--I don’t know--Maxwell’s relations; look at this on page fifty-four. Like, that’s it.

Kregg: Yeah. I know what you mean. So, were you very active in class then?

Robert: Yeah. I would say definitely way more active than our current students. I would definitely ask questions, or one of the things that I did actually more frequently than--all right. So, let’s say, between spring semester 00:32:00and the next fall semester, I would ask professors in chemistry--I didn’t do this with any other classes--what textbooks were we gonna use for that next fall semester, and I’d spend the summer actually reading ahead.

Kregg: Wow! 00:33:00Robert: You know, students talk, and they’ll say, okay, well, oh, man, organic chemistry is a beast. Oh, really? Okay. And I’ve put in my mind, okay, well, I’m gonna smoke organic chemistry by ordering the book ahead of time, and I’m gonna devote part of the summer to familiarize myself with it. I didn’t do the whole, well, I’m gonna do every problem. None of that stuff. But, just familiarized myself with terms and things of that nature. So, when I did get to a lecture, nothing was foreign to me, so I could just focus on the chemistry itself. It’s better than learning a new language and then trying to solve problems in that language. If you already know the language and the terms, then all you have to do is focus on the problems.

Kregg: Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. That seemed to work. So, after Morehouse College, and--well, I’m sorry, before I move on, were there any other challenges that you experienced in undergraduate?

Robert: No. Morehouse, I think, was exactly what I needed to get the confidence that I lost, over 00:34:00the course of my high school years, back and recalibrate myself socially to where I feel like I can be my authentic self in an academic environment. And that was very important because I needed every ounce of that confidence, when I went to graduate school.

Kregg: So, where did you go to graduate school?

Robert: So, I got my master’s from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. At the time, I wanna say they were, I would definitely say, top ten. Top ten graduate program in chemistry at the time. Top three analytical chemistry. Something like that.

Kregg: And what year was that? 00:35:00Robert: I went from 2002 to 2005. I got my master’s degree from there.

Kregg: Nice. What was that experience like at Purdue? I think I’ve only been there once.

Robert: So, that experience…I’m trying to be as accurate as possible. That experience was almost the polar opposite of Morehouse. And it’s not just you’re going from an HBCU to, what we call, a predominantly-white institution. This particular part of Indiana--like, I remember traveling up there, let’s say, a week, two weeks before classes started or whatever. And I didn’t see another Black person 00:36:00for three or four days. Days! I’ve never gone a day without seeing somebody else that’s Black. I went three or four days without seeing another Black person. That messed with me before I took any classes. And I’m like, man, what did I get myself into! But, aside from that, some of the experiences that I had…and this is outside of just the general difficulty of completing the graduate program, especially one that’s known as being one of the top ten in the nation. So, of course, they have their standard. 00:37:00Then, despite what anybody says, undergraduate, high school…you can get through those things by yourself. You don’t necessarily have to have much external assistance other than your own will, and you can just grind things out and show what you’re worth and figure things out on your own. You really truly, especially getting into a graduate program--I’m sure that you know this about Virginia Tech--you need a network of people. You need a true support system. Your academic group, social group. And then if you’re religious, your religious support system. 00:38:00You need all of that to be balanced, in order for you to have the mental capacity to get through a program like that. You really do. And little things that no one was especially forthcoming with was the fact that--and I always tell my students this now--sometimes choosing the right advisor is better than going for a particular research area or topic because depending on where that advisor is in their journey in academia, some people want you to stay in the lab as long as you can 00:39:00until they could acquire enough funding to let you free. And other people are known for actually graduating students and getting you the right job placement because they have networks, right? Me and my crazy self, I’m like, oh, man, this looks interesting, so I joined a smaller group. And not to say that that experience was bad per se, but I could’ve easily worked with people who were probably more well-positioned to lend me a position that I would have wanted at the time. So, no one schooled me on how to 00:40:00survive graduate school per se. It’s all by trial and error, and then, in hindsight, you look at these other groups, and you’re like man, they have it all figured out. They have an actual roadmap for students coming in--what they need to do, how to survive, how to get out every single time.

Kregg: Yeah.

Robert: Like clockwork. Like, their system is down to a science, if you will. No pun intended, but that’s what it is. It’s very formulaic. And the way that I see it--and this is not to say that 00:41:00there wasn’t support for Black graduate students in chemistry, but it wasn’t to the level that would allow you to be your authentic self. You almost had to be some something outside of yourself just to get through that, and it was painful from that aspect. Because, again, you’re going from Morehouse--again, it was the first time in a long time where I felt like I could be my authentic Black self in an academic environment because people looked at me, and they’re like, okay, well, what this guy knows is okay, and we’re gonna help to build him up. 00:42:00On the flip side, going to West Lafayette, it’s like I’m being broken down again…ever so slowly. Right? Classes are classes. As long as you do what you need to do, it’s fine, but when you’re reaching out, and you’re trying to network and form study groups and things of that nature, not all the Black students are taking the same classes because, depending on what subdiscipline you’re in, you have to take a certain set of classes in a certain sequence. So, even our small group, we’re now broken up, so instead of, 00:43:00let’s say, nine or ten of us, now it’s one or two of us trying to hold each other down and get through this program because we chose a particular subdiscipline.

Kregg: Gotcha. I mean, clearly, you were successful.

Robert: Yeah, to some degree.

Kregg: Facing that kind of challenge--correct me if I’m wrong, sounds like not too many people wanted to be in your study group other than the other Black person.

Robert: Well. No, man. It’s almost like you’re going above and beyond. When you’re Black, and you’re in that environment, and as crazy as it sounds, it’s almost like you’re trying so 00:44:00hard to just prove you’re worth studying with. What kind of stupid stuff is that? You’re clearly there to earn an advanced degree, right? You become the affirmative action guy, or you’re just here because the school’s trying to meet a quota. And even if that is true--now, I’m not saying that it was true--even if it is true, that doesn’t, necessarily, mean that you shun Black people because you don’t feel that--you know. I mean, dude, you’re trying to study, and all this stuff is going on in your mind on top of you learning how to be a professional, practicing chemist, which is hard enough 00:45:00itself. You get these--now, they have terms for these things--imposter syndrome. These feelings of self-doubt when you don’t necessarily have to have it because you know that you have the background for it. Graduate school isn’t necessarily supposed--I don’t think anybody’s ever said it directly to us as undergraduates--graduate school isn’t supposed to be a gradual transition. The step between, let’s say, high school and undergraduate is not smooth either, but the step is much shorter. 00:46:00From undergraduate to graduate, it’s like [way beyond]. Unless you come from a larger majority university where they have a lot of resources. So, let’s say, a chemistry major at Virginia Tech, because of the resources that they get, they may have an easier transition, but they still have to make the jump from undergraduate to graduate.

Kregg: Right. Intensity level is higher. Academic rigor is higher. You’re expected to be more independent, right? So, let’s see, we’ve got about ten minutes here until I get kicked out of this library.

Robert: So, do we do need to set up another time to 00:47:00finish it because I’m sure you have more questions?

Kregg: Yes. That’s what I’m thinking. Let me pause recording again. So yes. So we will stop the interview here for now and then pick up in a few hours. So, thank you very much.

Robert: No 00:48:00 problem. 00:49:00Kregg: Oh, yeah. Looking forward to the good stuff coming up later on. You got graduate school. You got the path to becoming a chair to your department, and in the meantime, somehow, you managed to have a family.

Robert: Yeah. Looking forward to it.

Kregg: Thanks, Rob.

Robert: No problem.

Kregg: Well, welcome back. This is Kregg Quarles again interviewing Robert Green for the Black History in STEM Project 2021, continuing from earlier today, which is June 30, 2021. All right. Got that out the way. So, let’s see…what do you want to talk about? I’m just kidding. So, this path to excellence. I think we were at your graduate school and things going on. You were comparing that transition from being from a HBCU and undergraduate to a PWI [predominantly white institution] and graduate school. But, there’s a whole lot more that goes from there to where you are now, 00:50:00if you wouldn’t mind continuing. What were some of the things that helped along the way?

Robert: Well, toward the end of my master’s, that’s when I ended up getting married. I met my wife in graduate school at Purdue, and we started our family there in Indiana. We got married when she was pregnant with my first-born son, so I went on hiatus. But, my mentor at the time, Dr. Joseph Francisco--I told him I was gonna take a little leave of absence, and I promised him--I said, hey, I’m definitely gonna finish my Ph.D.; I’m just going to go make some money right quick. That’s when I went from 00:51:00being a graduate student to being a professional. I started off at the high school level; I taught high school for a year. It’s much different, of course, from being a professor because, at least as a professor, the students are more likely to have a frame of reference of chemistry if they took it in high school. So, they’re not starting from zero; they, at least, know what an atom is and how to loosely calculate molarity and little basic stuff like that. Teaching high school, they have no concept of anything; they just know that matter exists, and that’s about 00:52:00it. So, I challenge any professor to try to teach--if it’s just one year of high school because if you teach someone that doesn’t have a concept of anything, you get into the root of how you can build their knowledge from the ground up.

Kregg: So, did you enjoy that?

Robert: Well, I enjoyed it from a standpoint of…well, I like challenges, so when you have twenty-five, thirty kids that 00:53:00don’t know what you’re talking about, but you’re so invested in their learning, and you know the types of things that they are gonna see on the next level, you try your hardest to make sure that they have all the tools necessary to achieve on the next level. If you’re gonna do a job, you try to do it well. Teaching high school for that one year, that gave me the motivation to learn about the art of teaching. And it is an art. How you structure things. Some people don’t believe that there’s a particular order in which you should learn things. But, of course, that’s been proven not be true. Just because you have the command of the English language doesn’t necessarily mean that you can go 00:54:00in any sequence that you want. So, how to organize lessons in the sequence that makes sense to students, that’s the main thing that I learned from teaching high school. You should try to approach it from that standpoint because there’s always gonna be one or two people that are seeing chemistry really for the first time. Even if they took it in high school, you never know what caliber of teacher that they had. It may not necessarily be someone with a chemistry degree. It may be someone that just so happened to be certified in general science, and they just kinda dumped chemistry on them. It’s much different than someone with a chemistry degree.

Kregg: Right. Around 00:55:00what years was that?

Robert: So, that was 2005. So, 2005 through 2006. That was my one year of teaching high school. From 2006 on is when I was teaching at the college level.

Kregg: All right. So, tell me about this. I wanna hear some of these stories that you have.

Robert: Well, which part? Because I have stories for just describing the graduate school experience. I may. So, if you would give me a little bit of guidance of where you want me to go first, then I could--

Kregg: Well, let’s go--right after high school, 00:56:00you go back to graduate school, right?

Robert: Oh. So, I taught high school for a year. I taught at the college level for, let’s say, 2006 to about 2010. So, it’s a four-year span where I was teaching at the college level. I taught physical science, which is general science that basically all majors that are not science majors--that’s what they need. I did that and some upper level inorganic chemistry because that’s my subdiscipline in organic chemistry; I taught courses in that area, and that was cool. And I taught physical chemistry and analytical chemistry because I was pretty good with instrumentation. 00:57:00But, the general chemistry and organic chemistry for this particular job, we had another couple of professors that taught that. And interestingly enough, students would come to me for help with their classes because, again, I gained an appreciation for the art of teaching. A lot of their students would come and ask for help, and my colleagues got upset about that. They were like, well, why are they coming to you, if they’re in my class? And I didn’t have a Ph.D. at the time; I just had my master’s, and I was good with that, you know, made decent money. 00:58:00When it was time to come up with departmental reports and assessments and things of that nature, and I would offer input on how I think certain things should be taught, the approaches that we should take, and the most effective assessment methods to gauge how much the students were learning, one colleague of mine said, hey, well, I understand what you’re trying to do, but I really don’t take advice from people who don’t have a Ph.D. That kinda floored me, and I’m like, oh, wow! People, actually, think like that! So, it was kinda like, okay, well, since you’re so smart, 00:59:00well, why don’t you have a Ph.D.? And I said, you know what? That’s a pretty doggone good question. Why don’t I have a Ph.D.? So, everything that I told my mentor from Purdue--that was the spark that got me back in the game and say, you know what; let me go ahead and finish my Ph.D., so I don’t have to hear stupid questions like this again. So, the very next day that he made that comment--I’ll never forget it; this was fall of 2009; this was the end of the fall semester. We’re doing our departmental assessments and things of that nature. So, it’s about December second, December third, or something like that. I said, okay; 01:00:00I got you; I hear you loud and clear. I didn’t say anything else for the rest of the meeting. I made a call to the University of South Carolina [USC]. I said, hey, if I take the GRE tomorrow, what’s the likelihood that I can get accepted for the very next semester? They’re like, well, you know, everything is electronic now, so you can just go ahead and do that. So, probably within two days, I took the GRE again because, of course, my scores are out of date, so I took it again. I was good to go. I applied, so spring 2010 was when I went back to school at the University of South Carolina. And it’s all because I got pissed at a meeting. Yeah. 01:01:00We’re not talking about the man, so to speak, that’s trying to keep us down. I’m talking about another brother, you know. So, I said, okay. And, you know, it kinda hurts when it comes from family. It’s like, ah, why’d you do that? But, you know, it’s all good. It was the spark that I needed to continue on my path because all I was gonna do was teach a bunch of classes, go home, play with my son, and that’s it. So, I got in, not that there was any doubt that I was gonna get in, but 01:02:00I went, and that’s where the love for, I guess, my current field really sparked because my very first semester, I had this--I don’t want to call him a--well, I guess I can call him a jerk. He was jerk-ish, but it’s the personality where he has an appreciation and a love for the field of inorganic and materials chemistry to where he felt like everybody that he had in his class should find it fascinating and gain a similar level of appreciation. So, when he wanted you to dig deeper--and one of his favorite things to say was, oh, this is easy; you should be able to pick it up just like that. Well, he is one of the foremost experts in the world in 01:03:00this area. And so, I’m like, you know what? This dude is onto something. Because when I do experiments and--you know, it’s not really messy, and you don’t have the nasty, pungent, organic smell and stuff like that, and you’re in clean rooms. You’ll be dealing with the semiconductor materials, and you want to make sure that you’re functionalizing the semiconductors in such a way to where you can’t have too many impurities. You really gain an appreciation for stuff. And you have to learn how to hold your urine and stand over a balance for hours on end, especially when you’re trying to make an abundance of materials. But, 01:04:00like I said, that’s when I started to love the work again. And I didn’t realize how much I actually missed being in the lab, so I tried to find a way to balance my love for the lab and my love for teaching all at the same time. So, everything that I learned from Purdue, in terms of how to navigate graduate school, I had an opportunity, again, to put those theories into practice and get out in a fairly quick amount of time.

Kregg: That’s awesome. How long were you in that program for?

Robert: Four years flat.

Kregg: Okay. Is that fast?

Robert: And that’s while holding down a full-time job. So, 01:05:00I did a lot of my work at night when everybody was sleeping. I would put my son in the bed, talk to my wife for a little bit, and then go back out to the lab at about 10:30, eleven o’clock, stay until about 3:30, 4:00 a.m, come back home, get some sleep, come back, and teach classes in the morning by eight o’clock because I like morning classes. Yeah. So, I never really went gray; I’m just now getting gray hair, but my hair did fall out. I lost a whole lot of sleep. A lot of sleep.

Kregg: But, you say that with a smile.

Robert: Yeah. It was worth it. It was worth it. I got to my goal. I got everything that I wanted out of the experiences. And I can smile today because at the end of the day, it’s worth 01:06:00it, and I feel like, okay, I found something that I love. And going back to the beginning of our conversation where I talked about, okay, well, mom and dad want me to go to medical school; I still had NASA on my mind, majored in something that I could have the most versatility. But, getting back to Dr. Story. Dr. Story, as difficult as he was as a professor, I felt like he piqued my interest in trying to find out how students learn. Because we would have these little small study groups; it would be like six or seven of us in that physical chemistry class, maybe a little bit more. But, 01:07:00in trying to understand the material, I figured out that I learned, and kinda fell in love with, explaining things to people, so that they could achieve, so me tutoring and participating in these study groups and learning the best way that I could learn the material and trying to explain things in a way that other people could understand, that put me on a path to academia. One of the things that I take pride in is coming up with analogies that our people can understand. It’s almost like a cultural-type explanation 01:08:00of why certain things make sense. Teaching at HBCUs and stuff like that…because one of the things that everybody has--almost all the students that I know, maybe it’s not so common now, but early in my career, everybody used to cook with momma and grandma. So, when you make cooking references to stoichiometry and how many pans of corn bread or cakes can you make, if you have this amount of eggs, this amount of flour with this amount of…you know. And they’re like, oh, wow, that makes sense, and they’re not even realizing that they’re learning. So, when you make that relationship between cooking with grandma and stoichiometry, 01:09:00then it’s like, okay, I see where you’re going with this. Because they have, now, these cultural references to chemistry and stoichiometry and knowing how much or how little of something they need in order to achieve a goal--and this is just an example--now, they’re more comfortable and more open to the rest of the information that I have to give them because, now, that barrier’s down. That make sense?

Kregg: Yes, it does. It does. I find the same thing in my teaching experience, too.

Robert: Yeah.

Kregg: We talk about relating it to other people and seeing the light go off. And then, from there, suddenly they gain interest in your subject, sometimes, or, at least, they perform better.

Robert: Yeah.

Kregg: So, would you say you have an equal love for chemistry itself, 01:10:00or doing inorganic chemistry, and for teaching?

Robert: Well. I’ll say that the love is equal, but what I love about my job now is the fact that on days that I feel like doing just research, I can do that. On days that I just feel like teaching--depending on what my load is, if I just want to teach on a particular day or just go over theory, I can do that. From one day to the next, it’s not boring. I have enough diversity in my job now to where I’m cool. I know that one day is not gonna be like the next, so to some degree, every 01:11:00day is like a new adventure. And that’s good as opposed to just doing one thing all the time and not doing any research and vice versa.

Kregg: Right, right. Once you got your Ph.D., did you become a professor right away?

Robert: Yeah.

Kregg: Okay, and was that at the same institution?

Robert: Same institution. I kept the same philosophy…[inaudible] at that time were no longer there. I became the chemistry coordinator, and it set the path on how we were going to engage students and assess them. I kinda controlled the chemistry program, and it was cool. It was cool. That’s 01:12:00when I was like, you know what? I think I’m gonna be all right career-wise.

Kregg: So, what did it take to come from professor to become the chair of your department. I mean, that’s nothing to sneeze at.

Robert: What it took was--so, in my career, I’ve always been the youngest guy in the group, and when you make decisions, when you try to put things in order for students, 01:13:00you try to meet them where they are. And you try to construct curriculum in such a way to where it’ll give them the best advantages in whatever they do, whether it’s going directly into the workforce--because I was a fresh Ph.D., knowing what’s out there now and what’s relevant, in order for them to become the most successful. Also, I learned that everybody has an opinion about you, whether what they think is justified or not. And Black folks are not necessarily…it’s 01:14:00not necessarily fair how Black folks are judged, especially in those spaces. Because you have to realize only one percent of the population’s Ph.D.s, right? One to two percent Ph.D.s. How many of those are Black? Let’s break that down. How many of them are in STEM disciplines? Then, how many of them are Black and male in STEM disciplines? So, in my second go-round in graduate school, there’s only a few Black faces that you see, especially in South Carolina, right? I’ve had people try to lock me out of the 01:15:00graduate research building. Literally.

Kregg: As a faculty member?

Robert: No, as a fellow graduate student.

Kregg: As a fellow graduate student.

Robert: I’ll give you an example. Because I had a full-time job, I literally spent almost all evenings and late into the nights in the research building. My research group was three people--had a postdoc and two graduate students. I was one, and the other grad student, they did computational work, so they weren’t in the lab like that. So, I’m one graduate student in a small research group doing all wet chemistry. I teach during the day; I’m there at night, so when I walk 01:16:00there, it’s dark, and I’m a tall Black man. So, I remember it was a Super Bowl Sunday--who was playing? I wanna say it was the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers. That day, I’m checking on an experiment. When I got there, a young white lady, she’s walking fast into the building. She turns around. She has her back against the door like, you’re not gonna enter my domain, and I’m just looking at her like, you’re stupid. She was like, you know, normal business hours are 01:17:00between--what, I don’t know--eight and five between Monday and Friday; you can’t come in here. And I just kinda stand like this, and I’m like, really? And I’ll give you the clean version of what I said; I just pulled my key out my pocket, and I said, well, lucky for you, I have my key. And I remember seeing her at the orientation; she was a first-year, and I think I was in my second or third year, so I’ve been here way longer than her, and I was like, what are you doing? But, you know, these things happen. And, again, this is my second trip, so I have tunnel vision, 01:18:00and I just block these things out. I have another instance. Again, remember, I teach during the day, so my access to the lab, where I’m not disturbing anybody, and no one is disturbing me, is at what? At night. Okay. So, graduate student research building at nighttime. I’m just minding my business; I have my earbuds in, going to the lab. Usually, I’m one of maybe five people in the building, at least at this particular hour. My lab is on the fifth floor, so they would call me Brother Man on the Fifth Floor. The janitors would call me Brother man on the Fifth Floor. No joke. It was funny as hell. 01:19:00I notice that the elevator at this time is stopped on the fourth floor, right? The fourth floor was where all the organic chemistry labs were, and I guess one of the other graduate students didn’t expect me to be on the elevator when the elevator stopped. I’ll never forget this night. So, little short Asian dude. He got on--he wasn’t paying attention--he got on the elevator, and he looked up at me, and he dropped all his stuff. Like, everything that he had in his little container full of chemicals. He dropped everything! And he’s like, don’t hurt me! Don’t hurt me! Don’t hurt me! And I’m like, who? Me? I’m like, dude, 01:20:00get up! What are you doing? He spilled all of his chemicals on the elevator and into the hallway, so I know he ruined some experiments, so he had to start all of that stuff over just because he’s not familiar with seeing a Black man in a research lab.

Kregg: And you were there to hurt him, apparently.

Robert: I guess so! And, you know, I’m dressed like all of the other graduate students. I have on my incoming year graduate program shirt, so I have on a USC shirt. And it was just like, what would make this dude think that I’m here to hurt him? 01:21:00And a host of all the other things that happened. I’ve become somewhat of an expert in X-ray diffraction--

Kregg: Wait, could you say that again? An expert in what?

Robert: X-ray diffraction. So, setting up experiments like solving powder patterns, and I’ve had people come into the lab because, in other research groups, their advisor would call my advisor, and they’ll say, hey, if you want to run some samples or whatever, go into the lab, and Rob will help you. So, I’m sitting at the damn X-ray--pardon me. I’m sitting at the X-ray machine, 01:22:00and students would come in, and they’ll ask if Rob’s available to help them with their X-ray, as if I’m not sitting next to the X-ray machine. Like, it can’t be this dude; it has to be another guy named Rob. But, I’m the only one there. And, by this time, the postdoc is gone. I wanna say I had this conversation probably the other day. Now, programs at PWIs are becoming more deliberate in addressing diversity in the workplace and the graduate program to make sure that they don’t run into any issues or make people of color feel uncomfortable. 01:23:00And I’m like, well, I sure as hell needed y’all back in the early 2000s, now that you guys are making all this effort. Maybe I wouldn’t be so traumatized now. So, I say that to say that, if you look back at the beginning of what we’re talking about, it’s all about learning how to accept Black people in academic spaces, where even though you are not familiar or used to having Black people there, that doesn’t necessarily mean that we don’t belong there. We belong there because we have interests in these particular areas just like you do. Why is it so difficult to believe that--that we could go out and earn 01:24:00a Ph.D. or master’s or whatever in these different STEM disciplines? Why is it that it’s so tough for you to believe that we love science?

Kregg: Yeah.

Robert: Like, I just think that, you know…I find the comedy in it, but I only find comedy in it because it’s freakin’ sad. So, I try to--I guess as the cliche goes, you try to laugh to keep from crying because…I told a young man earlier today. We’re on another Zoom call. I said, hey, 01:25:00I long for the day to where the worst thing that I could think about on any particular day is getting an experiment right…versus me having to make sure that I am approachable enough for you to accept what I’m saying. I would rather the science be the most difficult part of my day than for me to make myself more accepting to you, so you can accept the information that I’m giving you. So, before I became the chair of the department of 01:26:00physical sciences at Alabama State University, I was actually the only full-time Black faculty member at Florida Polytechnic University. Being the only Black faculty, that’s a different level of pressure. Not even so much because of the kids; I think as time moves forward, students are more accepting of us as faculty. They only learn later on, when they go into these different workspaces that have less and less of us, that hey, okay, well, if you play it by the numbers, then if I see a Black man, then what’s the likelihood of him actually being in my group 01:27:00or another scientist or whatever? Then, you don’t have them embarrass themselves and try to say, hey, my trash can’s right here, or, hey, can you take this to the back for me at a function or something like that. You can’t imagine how embarrassed someone will feel to mistake someone else for the help, if you will. Not to say that there’s anything wrong with working in the service industry. But, when you are an academic or a scientific professional, and you’re attending a conference with other scientific professionals, and they try to hand you 01:28:00a plate or something for you to get rid of, and you’re like, dude what’s wrong with you? I’m sure that that is embarrassing. But, make our presence known so that we represent and represent well. But, the moral of the story is we need to increase our numbers and motivate our young Black students, despite what the numbers are or what the data quote unqoute tells us. There’s a healthy space for us here, and we need to on the flip side--and this is something else that, again, with the big talk on the diversity and inclusion--that whole 01:29:00thing, right? Some people want to do the whole pump fake thing. They want to pump fake and act like, yeah, we’re tryin’, but they’re not trying a doggone thing. I’ll give you an instance. I’ve only been a few places, so--I mean, if you look up my CV or something like that, you can make the determination of where this is. But, I’m in the diversity meeting; this institution had a diversity meeting. Remember, I went to Purdue University; I went to the University of South Carolina, so I made a lot of Black friends in STEM who have careers in academia. So, 01:30:00we’re trying to expand faculty capabilities in different areas, in engineering, in science, whatever. So, one of the university leaders brought up an issue and said, okay, well, we can’t find qualified individuals to fill these faculty vacancies, so I just kind of sit there--remember I’m one of the few Blacks in STEM. And I said, okay; well, what are you looking for? I just posed that question, okay; well, what do you need? Well, we need someone in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computer science. 01:31:00I said, oh! You do? And you want Black people, right? Yes. I pull out my cell phone, and I said, hey. Got a guy right here; he’s mechanical; he went to Purdue. Got another guy right here; he went to Rutgers Univeristy. Got another guy here; he went to Columbia University. Got another guy here; he went to the University of Michigan. So, I can call him; I can right here; these are my friends. That’s when the stuttering starts, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. You hear that oh shit. Oh, oh, oh, oh--I’m sorry. Oh, oh, oh, oh well, it’s not that simple. I said, yes, it is! 01:32:00You’re the provost aren’t you? You’re the president, right? You’re heavily involved in expanding the faculty capabilities. You presented a problem; I have a solution. If you look at their CVs, these are very accomplished individuals, so if you make, I guess, an appropriate offer, I am convinced that--at least me being the only Black faculty member here at the time--that they would come, and they would improve your diversity numbers and all of that stuff. And remember, we’re in Florida. We’re near a lot of stuff. 01:33:00That’s when they started this whole pump--they pump fake, oh, yeah; we’re looking for diversity; we wanna increase our numbers. So, I think in a lot of cases, they wanna create the illusion that, okay, well, we’re trying to do these things, but the numbers just aren’t there. No. Well, the fact is we have enough people out there now, and I’m not even talking about the older generation. I’m talking about we have a lot of mid-career, early-career Ph.D.s in these different areas that are looking for quality employment at a lot of these PWIs, and they’re just not given the looks. They’re just not. And 01:34:00until we can actually be honest about the efforts or lack thereof, that’s when we can actually improve the outcomes. Because we all know one or two people that have the right connection, and they’re given a look not because they’re brilliant, but because they have the right connection, and they’re put in these places, and next thing you know, they’re coming in making $135,000, $140,000 in the door. No experience. Because they know a guy.

Kregg: Yeah.

Robert: I mean, if we’re being honest, it happens, 01:35:00and you’d be a fool to think that it doesn’t happen.

Kregg: So, do you think you are now in a position--now that you are--did you start as the chair at the school? At Alabama that you’re… Robert: Yeah. I came in the door as the chair.

Kregg: Okay. So, as that position, do you feel like you’re in a position now to make that kind of difference, or is it still that kind of scenario?

Robert: Well…all right. So, at least in my situation now…people are really still getting to know me because I came in the semester right before the pandemic, so I haven’t had enough face-to-face meetings with people to make an impact. And even then, research has slowed down a lot since March 2020. Pretty much the world shut down. So, 01:36:00now that we’re going to quote unquote return back to normal, I think that the momentum that I tried to start back in fall 2019--it’ll pick back up. We lost almost two years. Literally.

Kregg: Wow. Two years. That’s crazy.

Robert: We’re right at about a year and a half now.

Kregg: Yeah. So, you’ve been chair for basically two years now? What was it like before the pandemic? Was there any experience to there, or do you still have yet to really get the full…?

Robert: Well, you know, everything is much more relaxed I think. 01:37:00My experience has been pretty good where I am now. I’ve had opportunities, and I have the right type of support because, one, it’s an HBCU, but, two, people are more open to listen. HBCUs typically have a different set of challenges, and it’s not necessarily the administration being open and accepting ideas. It’s about…in different areas, how resource limited you are. Because Alabama State doesn’t have the same level of resources as an Auburn University or University of Alabama because those are the state’s 01:38:00flagship institutions, so everything’s going to be devoted to them. And I don’t know if you heard recently, I think maybe Maryland is the first state to give what--I don’t wanna call it reparations. I wanna call it equal level of resources to the HBCUs within that state. Yeah, and that happened recently. So, Bowie State University, University of Maryland Eastern Shore, and Morgan State University. I think now they’re getting 01:39:00more comparable levels of support from the state of Maryland as the University of Maryland College Park and stuff like that. So, that’s gonna change the game. That’s gonna change the game in a more meaningful way. So, now, you’re gonna have the attraction of Black talent to these HBCUs, and the quality of--so think about it like this. So, the ultra-talented Black faculty that--if you’re giving them a choice--let’s think about it. So, let’s say you have comparable salaries for Black faculty. And you give them the option of going to a place where they’re going to be one of whatever or 01:40:00giving them a place that is going to be more nurturing, more accepting of their talents, and embrace them as an individual, what do you think is gonna happen to the diversity of the faculty in those schools? I mean… Kregg: Yeah, I mean, people wanna be where there’s love and respect.

Robert: Yep. So, that’s gonna be interesting to watch in the next couple of years, I think.

Kregg: I think this is great, since this is an oral history. This is a historic record so--

Robert: Yeah.

Kregg: Now, in the future when we look back, 01:41:00both at this interview and the time and we see, okay, so how did that change? It’ll be interesting to see if what we consider the obvious actually happens.

Robert: Yeah. It’s gonna be interesting to watch. And if you remember, back in 2008, everybody was excited about Barack Obama becoming president because absolutely no one imagined in their lifetime that there was gonna be a Black president, right? So, now, we’re entering a new era of really, really significant firsts. And I think that we may look back at what the state of Maryland did and say, you know what? That’s the one. But, of course, 01:42:00it’s not a southern state; it’s a mid-Atlantic state, and I wanna say that they’re the northernmost of the Mason-Dixon line. So, they’re above Virginia, right next to Delaware. When you have the D.C./Maryland crew, if you say that they are from the South, they kinda look at you like, oh, my God, I’m not a Southerner. I’m from D.C. And you’re like, ha, south! You just wanna piss them off, whatever--but that’s neither here nor there. I get a kick out of it. I do. Just to kind of poke the bear a little bit. But, yeah, I think that as time moves forward and with 01:43:00the killing of George Floyd and all of these things that are happening and being filmed. And being filmed. And being filmed…because a picture is worth a thousand words. And when you give people the visual, along with things that they kind of know is wrong but it’s not right there in your face, people are gonna have to come to terms with who they truly are and how they really fit in the grand scheme of things and accepting the very essence of their being. And I say that to say, okay, well, for every--I’m not necessarily talking about Black folks here. I’m talking about the people who actually 01:44:00have the power…because we’ve been saying the same things for a very, very, very long time. Very long time. The people who have some say so and are in a position to get this thing moving are the white folks. The white politicians that say, okay, now enough is enough. What can we do to truly have equity in all of these different areas of American society? How can we have equity and parity in academia? How can we make sure that 01:45:00in small-town America, where there are still pockets of Black people, that they have an equal chance at receiving a good education? When will gerrymandering stop? Because people work almost their whole lives to change their zip code only for it to be redrawn and redistricting to happen, and then everything they worked for pretty much just goes to waste. And that sucks. That truly sucks. But, 01:46:00let’s think about it like this--and it’s probably an example that I shouldn’t use--remember when we were back in school, and Lenox Mall and Phipps Plaza were [the places that made people say,] ah, this is the rich area; this is the nice part of town. I really wanna be over here, and I know that I’m gonna have a nice time in this area of Atlanta. You may die over there now; the chances of you dying over there is far greater now. Why? Why is that? People migrate; people move in order to feel like they made it in life, and money and resources, at least 01:47:00to some degree, is a great equalizer. But, for some odd reason, when we try to move and elevate ourselves…stuff just happens.

Kregg: Do you find a parallel between that, on the larger field…do you see any chance of that being any different in STEM?

Robert: I think that it could happen. But, the problem with our society--and I’ll 01:48:00just say the larger American society…is what is put in your face as valuable. Yes, you can make a good living being an entrepreneur. You can find lots of crafty ways to make money because there’s a money or hustle culture, right? But, the only thing that’s going to make us sustainable in the future, I mean truly sustainable, 01:49:00is scientific knowledge--what’s the best way of preserving life here on Earth, and how we can be in harmony with our environment on Earth. So, renewable energy, repurposing things that are already made. Like, we have shoes with soles that’s made out of old tires or reclaimed tires. Something like that. 01:50:00And geopolitical issues with control of oil and other resources and things like that. Colonization of whole continents based on resources that advance the scientific future of various countries. Because you can’t convince me that Africa is super poor when you have people of various backgrounds trying to move to Africa, colonize Africa, and then take over trillion-dollar mines of rare earth metals, things of that nature. I don’t know. You tell me. Why can’t 01:51:00the African people control that and help their own economy? Why does somebody have to come in and pretend like they love the people and try to take over? Well, I love Africa. Yes. These are my people. You know. Stuff like that.

Kregg: I hear you. I hear you.

Robert: I’m gonna keep it real, but I’m not gonna go too much because that’s not necessarily my area, but believe me, I see it.

Kregg: Right. Well, I mean, you interact with it, right?

Robert: Because I work with rare earth materials. That’s what I do. China controls ninety-some odd percent of the rare earth market. That doesn’t mean that rare earths don’t exist in 01:52:00the rest of the world, but Africa has tons and tons of untapped mines, so that’s why you see the Chinese going into Africa trying to take these resources.

Kregg: Interesting connection between geopolitical environment and STEM environment and even your place. You see a connection between where the resources for your experiments come, and there is a connection between that and your own personal history and racialization.

Robert: Yeah. For some of my materials I’ve paid for--let’s say terbium oxide. I’ve paid as little--I mean, I’m talking about for the same quantity, anywhere between ten and twenty-five grams--let’s say, fifteen grams. 01:53:00Fifteen, twenty grams--I’ve paid as little as $300 for twenty grams, and I’ve paid as much as $800 for the same twenty grams from the same company. And like I said, we’re talking about twenty grams. So, when you have these companies that need it on a much, much larger scale. Then, what?

Kregg: Right, and as we increase in STEM, then I guess you would increase the demand.

Robert: Right. Yeah, that’s why I try to make materials that don’t need rare earth metals and try to produce the same quality of whatever. Have the same function. Because that’s how you kill the game. 01:54:00Kregg: I like that. Well, on that note, I don’t wanna take up too much of your time. And I do appreciate the stories and…you had a very interesting path to where you are, and clearly, the story isn’t over.

Robert: Oh, no, no, no, no.

Kregg: So, this being a historical record, the last question I like to ask is is there anything else that you would like to share? That you think would be important for researchers in the future who wanna look back into now? Anything that you think people should know.

Robert: Okay. Well, I guess the last thing I wanna say is that, anybody that views this, all the words that I have said on today during this interview, it’s--well, one, it’s therapeutic for me. And I never--probably before 01:55:00today, I haven’t done too much reflecting on my own story. So, I’m literally trying to recall things as I remember it for this presentation. But, the second thing is I want people to realize that you do belong. A lot of the things that we see--it’s all an illusion. As people in STEM, we like looking at data because the data tends to tell a particular story about why things are occurring the way that they do. So, numbers that get thrown out are, okay, well, only a small amount of 01:56:00Black folks enter the STEM areas. All right. Well, yeah, and that may be true; however, there’s a whole lot of data out that really tells a story as to why it is that way. And if you ever find yourself fortunate enough to be in a position to compete at this level or go on this path, don’t forget that you’re there for a reason, and don’t let anything stand in your way of achieving whatever goal that you set for yourself because it’s where you belong. You’re destined to be great. 01:57:00You do belong. And even if you’re not the best scientist in the world, your story is there, and the example that you lead is there to inspire somebody behind you and propel them forward. So, I’ll leave it there.

Kregg: Wow, well those are powerful words. So, I’ll end the recording on that note.

Robert: Yeah; you could do that.

Kregg: Yeah; continue that. If you wouldn’t mind, Rob, would you mind saying that again?

Robert: All right. So, there’s a play that I remember from--I wanna say the late 1980s when Bo Jackson was with the L.A. Raiders--and I wanna say they were playing against the Seattle Seahawks--and this is my analogy 01:58:00of being Black in STEM. There was a play where, I think, Bo Jackson took a pitch up left sideline. And--took the pitch; he ran up the left sideline. And he’s running so fast and so hard to where it seemed like he didn’t even know where the end zone was. And he kept running, kept running; he ran up the tunnel. He had already scored, but he was still running as fast as he was when he got the pitch. That’s what it’s like to be Black in STEM. You’re running fast and hard, and a lot of times you don’t even realize when the race is over. 01:59:00You just never quit.

Kregg: Wow. Thank you. [End of Recording]