Randolph Bromery

Randolph W. ("Bill") Bromery (January 18, 1926 – February 26, 2013) was an African-American educator and geologist, and a former Chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Amherst (1971–79). While Chancellor, Bromery established the W.E.B. Du Bois Archives at the University of Massachusetts, and was one of the initiators of the Five College Consortium. He was also President of the Geological Society of America, and has made numerous contributions as a geologist and academic. During World War II, he was a member of the Tuskegee Airmen, flying missions in Italy.

Bromery was born in Cumberland, Maryland, on January 18, 1926, to Edith Edmonson and Lawrence Randolph Bromery. As a young adult, he took machine shop training from the National Youth Administration, and began working as a machinist in Detroit. He then enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps, and was assigned to the Tuskegee Airmen, flying missions in Italy during World War II.

After his 1945 discharge from the Army, Bromery studied at Howard University, working full-time at the U.S. Geological Survey as an airborne exploration geophysicist—the first black professional geophysicist with the USGS. He ultimately earned his B.S. in 1956. Although his initial bachelor's degree was in Mathematics, his graduate work was in geology: he earned an M.S. in 1962 from American University, and a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins in 1968, where his advisor was Ernst Cloos.

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