Cardinal Warde

Warde was born in Christ Church, Barbados.[1] His mother was Rosetta Irene Ward.[2] He attended St. Christopher's Primary School and Harrison College.[3] During school, Warde was involved with athletics.[3] He converted his father's carpentry shop into a chemistry laboratory, where he built rockets with his friends from high school.[3] Warde graduated from Harrison College in 1965, when he moved to America to start his undergraduate studies. Warde was a physics major at Stevens Institute of Technology, which he graduated in 1969.[3][4] Warde was a brother in Pi Lambda Phi and played varsity soccer.[4] Warde moved to Yale University for his graduate studies, where he worked on the refractive index of solid oxygen films, and earned his doctorate in 1974.[1] At Yale University Warde developed a new interferometer that could operate close to absolute zero.[3]

Warde was appointed to the faculty at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1974.[3] He was one of the first minority faculty members, and one of the first black tenured professors.[5][6] He was promoted to Professor of Electrical Engineering in 1982.[7][8] He worked on the applications of optics to engineering, including optical computing, wireless communication and holography.[3] He developed optical neural network processes to power computers and membrane-mirror based spatial light modulators for optical switching.[4] His research is supported by the National Science Foundation.[9] He founded Optron Systems in 1982, a start-up incubator that developed MicroElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS) displays.[10] Optron Systems specialised in optoelectronic systems, which use light for information processing.[11] He didn't hire his first employee until 1983, raising all the money himself from teaching and consulting, and was worth $3 million in 1986.[11] In 1999 he co-founded Radiant Images, Inc, that created liquid-crystal VLSI displays.[3] Radiant Images was acquired by Hoya Corporation.[12]

At MIT, Warde has served as Faculty Director of the Minority Introduction to Engineering and Science program since 1997.[3] The program is a six-week long program for gifted students from underrepresented minority students.[12] He served as editor of The Journal of Display Technology and is a Fellow of The Optical Society.[4]

Alongside his research, Warde works with the Caribbean government to build economic development in the Caribbean.[13] He serves as the Government of Barbados scientific advisor. He is the interim executive director of the Caribbean Diaspora for Science, Technology & Innovation (CADSTI).[14][15] He is the Executive Director of the Caribbean Science Foundation.[12] He has worked with the United States Department of State and Imperial College London on programs that support science and engineering to school students.[16][17]

In 2018 Warde established the Rosetta Irene Ward Memorial Scholarship Fund, which supports the higher education of students from English speaking Caribbean countries.[2]