Isiah Warner (1946- )

December 23, 2019 
/ Contributed By: Emile Pitre

Isiah Warner

Isiah M. Warner

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Professor Isiah M. Warner is the Boyd Professor of Chemistry and Philip W. West Professor Analytical & Environmental Chemistry at Louisiana State University (LSU). He is an analytical/ materials chemist with more than 350 refereed publications and nine acquired patents between 1985 and 2017.

Isiah M. Warner was born in DeQuincy, Louisiana, on July 20, 1946 to parents Humphrey and Erma Warner. He attended the public schools in DeQuincy and while there developed an interest in science and mathematics early on and conducted his first experiment by drinking kerosene to see why it created light.

Warner graduated as valedictorian of his class from Carver High School in Bunkie, Louisiana in 1964. Later that year he enrolled in Southern University in Baton Rouge. Warner decided to attend Southern because he had participated in a summer chemistry program at Southern while he was still in high school University in Baton Rouge during high school.

In 1968 Warner earned his B.S. degree in chemistry in 1968 from Southern and then went to work as a technician for Battelle Northwest, a private research and development company in the state of Washington that did contract work with the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). While working a Battelle, Warner enrolled in the University of Washington, Seattle and earned a Ph.D. degree in analytical chemistry there in 1977.

After completing his doctorate, Warner returned to the South and from 1977 to 1982, he served as assistant professor of chemistry at Texas A&M University. He was the first African American on the chemistry faculty there. After five years, he achieved tenure and was promoted to associate professor. While at Texas A&M, he researched fluorescent spectroscopy, an area of specialization that he has focused on now for over four decades.

In 1982 Warner joined the faculty at Emory University where he was promoted to full professor in 1986. He served as the Samuel Candler Dobbs professor of chemistry from 1987 until 1992. During the 1988-89 academic year, Warner went on leave to the National Science Foundation where he served as program officer for analytical and surface chemistry.

In 1992, Warner joined the faculty at Louisiana State University as the Philip W. West Professor of analytical and environmental chemistry and was promoted to chair of the chemistry department and later in 2000 the Boyd Professor of Chemistry, the highest rank for an LSU faculty member. Eventually he served as vice-chancellor for strategic initiatives at Louisiana State University.

Over the past 20 years Warner has researched areas of organized media, separation science, and more recently the area of ionic liquid chemistry particularly as applied to solid phase materials for applications in materials science and analytical chemistry. In addition to his research focus, however, Warner has been very active in mentoring students and has guided (directly or indirectly) hundreds of graduate and undergraduate student to successful careers in STEM fields.

In 1984 Warner received one of the first Presidential Young Investigator Awards from President Ronald Reagan. In 1997 he received a Presidential Mentoring Award from President Bill Clinton. Three years later in 2000, he received the Lifetime Mentor Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). In 2016 Warner was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the following year he was named a Royal Society of Chemistry Fellow and a National Academy of Inventors Fellow.ย  Warner is a member of Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity.

Dr. Warner is married to Della Blount Warner and the couple have three children Isiah Jr, Edward, and Chideha. They currently live in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

About the Author

Author Profile

Emile Pitre, a native of Louisiana, is a graduate of Southern University (Magna Cum Laude) in Baton Rouge, LA and the University of Washington (National Institutes of Health Fellow). The son of a sharecropper (seven siblings) and the first to graduate from high school, he received a full ride for the first seven years of college.

Emile began his career by working for several organizations in various roles such as: the Environmental Protection Agency, as a chemist; CIBA-GEIGY USA in Greensboro, North Carolina as a Senior Analytical Chemist; and the Seattle Public Schools as an educational planner/ evaluator.

Rejecting an offer from Monsanto which would have paid $20,000 more, Emile returned to UW in 1982 to serve as Head Chemistry Instructor of the Office of Minority Instructional Center (IC). In 1989 he was promoted to Director. In this role he oversaw a professional staff of 16 Study discipline-specific Instructors and a tutorial staff of 75-100. Approximately 60 of Emileโ€™s chemistry tutors went on to earn medical degrees. Another 25 have successfully completed dental or graduate school. During his tenure as director the IC won two University Recognition Awards (one for instructional excellence and one for diversity efforts). Also, during this period more than 11,000 IC users went on to earn bachelors from UW. After more than 33 years, Emile retired as Associate Vice President for Assessment in the Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity (OMA&D). By the time of his retirement in 2014 he was recognized as an โ€œelder statesmanโ€ of the Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity, not only for his knowledge of OMA&D history but also for his dedication to student success throughout his career.

Currently, he works part-time at OMA&D serving as Senior Advisor to the UW OMA&D Vice President, working on special projects, one of which is to lead efforts to write a book on the fifty-year history of minority affairs. Another project involves working with the UW College of Education on an initiative to improve the access, retention, and graduation rates of underrepresented minority males.

Honors and awards Emile has received include the following:

UW Professional Staff Organization Award for Excellence;
Phi Beta Sigma Distinguished Service Society;
UW Health Sciences Distinguished Service Award for Community Service and Volunteerism;
Mentoring for the 21st Century Recognition Award, Louisiana State University;
National Association of Medical Minority Educators โ€œDiversity Trailblazerโ€ Award;
Alpha Kappa Alpha W.E.B. Dubois Talented Tenth Award;
Delta Sigma Theta Alumnae Chapter โ€œTrajectory to Excellenceโ€ Award;
Golden Key International Honor Society (Honorary member);
National Society of Black Engineers (1989 & 2006); and
UW Mortar Board Senior Honor Society Honorary Citation.
Scholarships named in his honor include Emile Pitre Instructional Center Tutor Fund Endowment (University of Washington); Murray, Pitre, Baker, Rosebaugh Scholarship (University of Washington); and Emile Pitre Scholarship (Epsilon Epsilon Sigma, Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc.).

In addition to his work with the Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity (OMAD), Emile has served (for over 20 years) as advisor to the Black Student Union (BSU), an organization he helped found in 1968. Emile helped spearhead the production of an award-winning documentary (โ€œIn Pursuit of Social Justiceโ€) in 2007 which highlighted the role played by the 1968 BSU in the establishment of OMAD. It should be noted that on May 7, 2008, Emile and other founding members of the 1968 BSU received the Charles Odegaard Award for unwavering commitment to educational opportunity and diversity at the University of Washington.

Emile is a member of Phi Beta Sigma, Inc. and for six years served as the fraternityโ€™s Director of Education for the Western Region. He has also served as Director of Education (8 years) and Vice President (2 years) of Epsilon Epsilon Sigma. In 2005, he was awarded a Phi Beta Sigma Education All Star pin for his noteworthy contribution to education. In 2010, he received the Sigma Inspirational Award for dedication of service to education.

Two academic scholarships have been established in his name-one at the University of Washington (endowed) and the other in his fraternity, Epsilon Epsilon Sigma.

Emile and his wife Barbara Pitre, who have been married for almost 39 years, are the proud parents and grandparents of a blended family that is composed of seven son, one daughter, and 15 grandchildren. Emile is an avid photographer. His photo gallery (Campus Walker Series) is featured quarterly in the OMAD eNews. Other photos are frequently featured on the OMAD web site. And he enjoys salsa dancing.

One of Emileโ€™s favorite quotes reads, โ€œWhat lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within usโ€โ€”Oliver Wendell Holmes

CITE THIS ENTRY IN APA FORMAT:

Pitre, E. (2019, December 23). Isiah Warner (1946- ). BlackPast.org. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/isiah-warner-1946/

Source of the Author's Information:

โ€œIsiah Warner,โ€ https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/isiah-m-warner-40; โ€œIsiah Warner,โ€ Louisiana State University, https://sites01.lsu.edu/faculty/iwarner/; โ€œIsiah Warner,โ€ The Undefeated, https://theundefeated.com/features/isiah-warner-lsu-stem-careers/.

Further Reading