Dr. Sekazi Kauze Mtingwa is a theoretical high-energy physicist of African descent and a co-founder of the National Society of Black Physicists. He has presided over the Interdisciplinary Consortium for Research and Educational Access in Science and Engineering. Mtingwa’s contributions to physics have helped to develop complex concepts like intrabeam scattering and wakefield acceleration.
Over the course of his professional career, his contributions have extended internationally, with one collaboration being the African Laser Centre (ACL), a nonprofit network founded in 2003 by a group of African countries interested in utilizing laser power. Dr. Mtingwa, one of the ACL’s founders, has previously served as an American representative and board member since the organization’s inception. His research interests include nuclear, accelerator, and high-energy physics, as well as nuclear energy policy.
Dr. Mtingwa was born on October 20, 1949, as Michael Von Sawyer in Atlanta, Georgia, and attended segregated schools until his sophomore year of high school. Mtingwa was the first African American to win first place in biology at the city’s integrated science fair that year. He earned a B.S. in physics and mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1971 and went on to earn a Ph.D. in theoretical high energy physics from Princeton University in 1976. Mtingwa changed his name from Michael Von Sawyer to Sekazi Kauze Mtingwa, a Tanzanian name, during his graduate school years.
Following graduate school, Mtingwa worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Rochester and the University of Maryland, College Park before being awarded a Ford Foundation fellowship in 1980 for his research. Dr. Mtingwa used the fellowship to move to Kane County, Illinois in 1981 to work as a research physicist at Fermilab. His theory of “intrabeam scattering” was developed at Fermilab in collaboration with fellow physicist James Bjorken, earning the pair the Robert R. Wilson Prize for Achievement in Particle Accelerator Physics in 2016. Mtingwa was the award’s first African American recipient.
Mtingwa worked at the Argonne National Laboratory in DuPage County, Illinois, between 1988 and 1991, developing theories on advanced wakefields, plasma acceleration, and photon colliders. Dr. Mtingwa joined the physics department at North Carolina A&T State University in 1991, served as chair until 1994, and was instrumental in establishing the university’s Interdisciplinary Research Center.
Dr. Sekazi Mtingwa co-founded the National Society of Black Physicists in 1992 and served as its president until 1994. He has also served on the board of Triangle Science, Education, and Economic Development, a consulting organization that helps minority students pursue careers in STEM fields. He returned to MIT in 2001 as an MLK Visiting Professor and worked in the Laboratory for Nuclear Science from 2001 to 2003.
He was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society in 2008. Dr. Mtingwa has focused his efforts since his retirement in 2012 on bringing scientific innovation and education to Africa, as well as mentoring, despite being awarded a fellowship by the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2015. (AAAS).