Tre Willingham

“There are not many people of color in the field of physics, and I am working to break that barrier,” said Tre Willingham, a 2021 graduate of Compton College who went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in physics at California Polytechnic University, Pomona, and has completed one year of graduate studies.

Willingham was recently accepted to the Ph.D. program in applied physics at the University of California, Irvine where he will begin the next phase of his studies this fall. “I’m looking forward to diving into this new academic journey and continuing to pursue my passion for physics,” he said.

Driven to succeed via persistence and discipline, Willingham likes to share his passion for physics with younger students who may be interested in following a similar path. In order to stay connected to Compton College, he has served as chief engineer on the Compton Comet Rocket project and teaches workshops in chemistry and physics hosted by the Compton College MESA/STEM Center. Housed at the Stanbeck-Petegrave Liquid Rocket Lab, the rocket project originally began several years ago with a group of Compton College STEM Club students who were competing in the Base 11 Space Challenge. The project has now morphed into other teaching and learning opportunities for local students to work in a thriving lab with robust equipment.

Additionally, Willingham is a peer mentor for young students through the Hesabu Circle, a nonprofit dedicated to excellence in mathematics, as well as promoting equity and access in education for students of color/underserved youth by leading programs that develop a college-going culture. “Being a first-generation college student has presented many hurdles, but immersing myself in organizations like the Hesabu Circle has helped nurture my development into a scientist,” Willingham said. “The Hesabu Circle founders and I share the same goal of reaching our youth and showing them the connection between their culture and mathematics, while prescribing repeated doses of representation of Black brilliance in STEM. With this in mind, we organized summer events that included a tour of the liquid rocket lab where I also work with a team.”

Willingham is adept at networking to nurture his development as a scientist and welcomes opportunities that come his way in the form of scholarships, bridge and fellowship programs, research projects, and mentorships. In summer 2022, he was a Cal-Bridge Summer Research Fellow at Stanford University working in Physics Professor and Primary Investigator David Goldhaber-Gordon’s lab. In simple terms, Willingham’s portion of the research involved investigating how to remove depositions from one atomic layer of thick 2D van der Waals (vdW) materials as part of a larger research project related to electron transport through vdW heterostructures.

In fall 2023, California State University, Long Beach offered Willingham an American Physical Society (APS) IGEN Google Bridge Fellowship to help him start his graduate studies in applied physics while he waited to begin his Ph.D. program at UC Irvine. He is now preparing to move to UC Irvine with his family, including his two children, where he will start his doctoral studies this fall.

This summer at Cal State Long Beach, he has a paid research position in Dr. Jiyeong Gu’s research group investigating the Magneto Optical Kerr Effect in collaboration with the Partnerships for Research and Education in Materials (PREM), a program of the U.S. National Science Foundation. The Magneto Optical Kerr Effect (MOKE) involves studying how polarized light changes as it reflects off the surface of a magnetic material or sample. This reflection is observed while the material is subjected to an alternating external magnetic field.

“Becoming a physicist is not the typical career path Black people might choose; the requisites alone can be daunting for anyone who is interested,” said Willingham. “The amount of energy, dedication, imagination, and restless nights can be intimidating, however, I’m here to show it can be done.”

He confirms that Compton College was a significant stop on the path to where he is now. “The semi-polished student that UC Irvine will soon get was forged in Compton College’s hallways,” Willingham says. “Everything that I am now started taking shape during my time at Compton College. I learned study skills, time management techniques, gain leadership experience, and participated in school and extracurricular activities—all facilitated at Compton College. This is where I developed vital skills and learned how to do all these things. With the goal of becoming a physicist, I needed a strong foundation and Compton College provided that foundation.”