Albert Antoine Biography Favorites Color Purple Food Grapefruit in the Morning Time of Year Spring

Scientist and educator Dr. Albert Cornelius Antoine was born in New York, New York, on January 14, 1925. He is the son of Wilhelmina M. and Emmanuel E. Antoine, both of whom were natives of the British West Indies. Antoine received his elementary and secondary school education in the New York Public Schools, having attended P.S. 184 / Cooper Junior High School and Townsend Harris High School, where he earned his high school diploma in 1941. He went on to earn his B.S. degree from the City College of New York and his Ph.D. in chemistry from Ohio State University. Before earning his Ph.D., Antoine was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1944 and was trained in the Army Specialized Training Program, where he took courses in civil engineering.

Antoine taught chemistry at the post-secondary level at Clark College in Atlanta, Georgia during the 1953 – 1954 school year, and later taught at Cleveland State University from 1963 until 1970. From 1954 until 1983, Antoine was also employed at the NASA Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, where his duties included research on jet and rocket propulsion, alternative fuels, energy research, project management, and technical management for contracts and grants. From 1983 to 1996, Antoine was Senior Research Associate (College of Engineering) for Cleveland State University at NASA Lewis Research Center.

Antoine is featured in Black Contributions to the Engineering and Science Fields at NASA Lewis Research Center and Blacks in Science: Astrophysicist to Zoologist by Hattie Carwell. He is also listed in American Men of Science. Over the years, his professional activities have included service on intergovernmental technical review and technical evaluating committees, membership in the American Chemical Society and publishing and lecturing on his research.

Antoine has also worked with many public service and non-profit organizations, including the Cleveland International Program, the Council for Careers in Science, the Rotary Club, and Creative Writing Workshop Projects, which was founded by his wife, June Sallee Antoine.

Antoine was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on March 18, 2004.