Warren Buck facts for kids

Warren Wesley Buck III (born in 1946) is an American physicist. He is famous for starting the first PhD program at Hampton University. This was also the first doctoral program of any kind at the university. Dr. Buck was also the first leader, called a chancellor, of University of Washington-Bothell. He helped that university become a four-year school. His science work focuses on tiny particles like quarks and mesons. He studies how these particles interact.

Early Life and Family

Warren Buck was born in Washington, D.C. in 1946. His parents were Warren W. Buck, Jr. and Mildred George Buck. He has one younger brother, Lawrence.

His parents grew up in the Midwest. His father was from St. Louis, Missouri, and his mother was from near Chicago. Mildred Buck was one of the few Black students at her high school. Warren and Mildred met at Lincoln University in Missouri. They were in a math class taught by Walter Richard Talbot. Dr. Talbot later taught Warren Buck III at Morgan State University.

Warren Buck, Jr. was the first Black person hired as a draftsman for the Weather Bureau. This agency later became part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Mildred Buck worked with young children. She was a director at a daycare and one of the first teachers for the Head Start program.

All of Dr. Buck's uncles served in World War II. Some of them were Tuskegee Airmen, who were famous Black military pilots.

Education and Learning

Warren Buck grew up in Washington, D.C.. He went to local schools for his early education. He graduated from Spingarn High School in 1963. At Spingarn, he was on the track team. Spingarn High School was opened in 1952 for Black students in Washington, D.C.

While in school, Buck was active in Boy Scouts. He achieved the rank of Eagle Scout. His father started his Cub Scout troop, and his mother was a den mother.

Buck first attended Lincoln University, where his parents had gone. He had a scholarship to run track. After two years, he moved to Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland. There, he started studying physics. Before transferring, he worked as a waiter and bartender. He was almost drafted into the military, but he got a delay when he was accepted to Morgan State.

At Morgan State, he studied with Walter Talbot and Bob Dixon. They encouraged him to continue his studies. He earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1968. That same year, he began graduate studies at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. In the summer of 1968, he worked at Johns Hopkins University. He studied how waves move in water in a lab there.

He earned his master's degree in physics from William & Mary in 1970. While at William & Mary, Buck helped create the college's Black Student Organization in 1969. He was also its first president. He was also part of the Omicron Delta Kappa honor society.

After his master's, Buck taught math at Bowie State University for a short time. He also stayed involved in civil rights. He returned to William & Mary in 1971. He finished his PhD in theoretical nuclear physics in 1976. His main professor was Franz Gross. His PhD paper was about how to calculate wave functions for a particle called a deuteron.

Career Highlights

After getting his PhD, Dr. Buck became a physics instructor at Stony Brook University in New York. He taught there for three years. During this time, he also worked on projects at Los Alamos National Laboratory for one month each year.

Next, he worked for a year at the University of Paris in France. After living in Paris, he and his wife lived on their boat for three years. They sailed between the Bahamas and Annapolis, Maryland. They also sold their artwork.

Hampton University

After his time at sea, Buck returned to the College of William & Mary. Soon after, he joined Hampton University in 1984. He wanted to help Black students get a great physics education. He became a full professor in 1989.

Dr. Buck is known for starting the physics PhD program at Hampton. This was the first doctoral program at the university. It was also one of only five such programs at any historically Black college or university at that time. He wanted to make sure minority students could do world-class physics from the start.

At Hampton, Buck created the Hampton University Graduate Studies program (HUGS). This program offers summer physics lessons for graduate students from other universities. He invited many famous physicists to speak at HUGS. He also started a summer program for undergraduate students. In 1990, he founded the Nuclear High Energy Physics Research Center for Excellence (NuHEP). This was a research group at Hampton. By the time Buck left Hampton, NuHEP had many researchers and students. He also helped develop the Jefferson Lab.

In 1997, Dr. Buck was featured on the TV show Bill Nye the Science Guy. He appeared in an episode about atoms and molecules.

University of Washington-Bothell

In 1999, Dr. Buck became the chancellor and dean of the University of Washington-Bothell. He held this leadership role for six years. During his time, the university changed from a two-year school to a four-year institution. The university also opened its permanent campus in 2000.

After being chancellor until 2005, he taught physics at the University of Washington-Seattle. In 2009, he returned to the Bothell campus. He became the director of the university's science and technology program. He is now a chancellor emeritus at UW-Bothell. He taught physics classes until he fully retired in 2013.

Leadership and Other Activities

In 2013, the College of William and Mary gave him an honorary degree. He was on the university's Board of Visitors from 2016 to 2020. He now advises the university president on fairness in the 21st century.

Dr. Buck has held many important roles throughout his career. From 2007 to 2008, he helped lead a NASA committee. This committee looked for new ways to explore our solar system. He also served on the education committee for the American Physical Society. He was on the board of directors for the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility’s Users Group. He also served on the board of directors for the Pacific Science Center.

Awards and Honors

• Fellow of the American Physical Society (1998)
• “Giant in Science,” Quality Education for Minorities Network (2001)
• Strong Men & Women in Virginia History honoree, Library of Virginia and Dominion Energy (2018)
• Hulon Willis Association Impact Award, College of William and Mary

Personal Life

When he was a student at William and Mary, Dr. Buck enjoyed theater. He was part of the Williamsburg Players and the university's theater department. He was a classmate of the famous actress Glenn Close.

Dr. Buck is a skilled sailor. He is also a watercolor painter. He learned to paint from Nándor Balász, who was an assistant to Albert Einstein. Buck learned to paint underwater during his sailing trips. He has even taught classes on underwater painting. He also practices Buddhist meditation.

Buck married his first wife, Francine, when he was in college. They had a son named Eric. His second wife was Linda Horn, and they had one daughter. In 2006, he married his third wife, Cate Buck. Together, they have four adult children and four grandchildren.

Select Publications

• "Family of relativistic deuteron wave functions," Physical Review (1979) - with Franz Gross
• "New constraints on dispersive form factor parameterizations from the timelike region", Physical Review (1998) - with Richard Lebed
• "The pion and kaon charge form factors," Bulletin of the American Physical Society (1993)