The Hon. Dr. Cardinal Warde spreads science and technology in the islands
He is among the 13th annual 50 Most Important African-Americans in Technology. Innovation & Equity 2013: Keeping America First in Technology: Public Innovation and Supplier Diversity explores the impact of optoelectronics on today's society, particularly the patents of the late Dr. Robert Lawrence Thornton.
In November, he returned to the St. Christopher Primary School in Barbados to show today's students that their futures are unlimited with science and mathematics. It was part of a visit that included a policy lecture on turning the Caribbean islands into a technology-driven economic force. Dr. Warde said it must start with education.
He is chair of the Caribbean Diaspora for Science, Technology and Innovation and a driving force behind the new Caribbean Science Foundation.
Since joining the faculty at MIT in 1974, the researcher has helped more than 1,600 youth complete the MITES summer science institute for high school juniors. Dr. Warde has been the faculty director since 1997.
As a young boy he started making his own toys. In Barbados he attended St. Christopher's Boys School, Boys' Foundation School and Harrison College, and was a sprinter on the high-school track team. His parents demanded excellence of him in school, but gave him lots of freedom and support so he could engage his inquisitive mind outside the classroom. By age 16, he had converted his father's unused carpenter's shop into a chemistry and physics laboratory, and with his high school friends he was launching homemade rockets (with mice aboard) from the beach near his home. Fortunately, he says, none of his rockets escaped earth's gravity and most of the mice got their freedom when the rockets crashed.
After finishing high school in 1965, Warde boarded a plane for the United States. He received a bachelor's degree in physics from the Stevens Institute of Technology in 1969, where he was also a member of the school's varsity soccer team. His passion for physics continued into graduate school at Yale University where he earned M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees in 1971 and 1974.
While at Yale, Warde invented a new interferometer that would work near absolute zero temperature in order to measure the refractive index and thickness of solid oxygen films for his Ph.D. research.
In addition to his research and teaching duties, Warde is also an entrepreneur: in 1982 he founded Optron Systems, Inc., an incubator company dedicated to developing novel electro-optic and MEMS displays, and light shutters and modulators for optical signal processing systems. Then in 1999 he co-founded Radiant Images, Inc., a company engaged in the manufacture of transparent liquid-crystal VLSI microdisplays for digital camera and camcorder viewfinders, portable telecommunications devices, and display eyeglasses.
As MITES Faculty Director, his primary responsibility is the intellectual content of the MITES program. Students now take courses in calculus, physics, biology/ biochemistry/ chemistry, humanities, genomics, digital design, electronics, architecture and engineering design. These high school juniors gain a better perspective about college and can take advantage of their senior year in high school to prepare for college and their professional careers. Since its inception, more than 1,600 students have participated in MITES, of which 32 percent have matriculated at MIT and over 80% have gone on to major in technical fields.
