Dr. Fred Begay, PhD (1932-2013), also called Fred Young and Clever Fox was a nuclear physicist who worked for NASA and developed alternative energy sources. He was a Navajo/Ute man from Ute Mountain Indian Reservation in Colorado.
Born in Towaoc where the Ute Mountain Indian Reservation was headquartered. He was taught by his parents, both Navajo healers, and learned Navajo and Ute as his native languages. His parents taught him their religious beliefs and the songs of the Blessingway ceremony. He didn't start speaking English until he was 10, when he began attending a Bureau of Indian Affairs school. This school was restrictive and racist, punishing him for speaking Navajo or Ute or reciting any traditional prayers. Because neither he nor his parents could advocate for him in English, the school forced him to learn to farm.
After turning 18, he enlisted in the Army and joined the Air Force. After, he returned to Colorado to help tend the family farm, but he did not stay very long.
Begay attended the University of New Mexico. His previous education being subpar, he took high school classes at night to keep us. He quickly got a bachelor's in math and science, a master's in physics, and a doctorate in nuclear physics. He joined the physics staff of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and joined two NASA-funded projects on space physics. He taught at Stanford University and the University of Maryland.
His field of research was thermonuclear fusion, especially plasma fusion. This is a potential source of clean energy but it is not yet efficient to overcome the amount of energy required to start the fusion process. One of his contributions to the field was the derivation of an electron temperature scaling law for laser-produced plasmas.
[Begay's photo for his election to the New York Academy of Sciences]
Begay spent his entire life dedicated to Navajo spiritualism and says that much of what physics teachers is mirrored in what he learned from his parents as a young child.
"It turns out many of the prayers and songs have built in lots of science, I was immersed in all that knowledge before I even got to the first grade. "