James Bradford Ames '37, MS '48 earned his Bachelors (1937) and Masters (1948), both in Chemistry. Ames was one of the first African Americans to graduate with a chemistry degree from MIT. He was the great-grandson of Paul Cuffe, a wealthy American 19th-century Quaker businessman, sea captain, abolitionist, and emigrationist.

The James Bradford Ames Fellowship Program

The purpose of the Ames fellowship program is to support long term research and publications on all aspects of African-American and Cape Verdean social history in Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, Cape Cod and New Bedford. Specifically, the awards are intended to encourage detailed studies of influential families and individuals from the region, including their professions and major occupational activities and the history of the African-American and Cape Verdean presence throughout the area. The research may be approached from any discipline or comparative perspective which helps to place these communities in a broader national, regional or global perspective.

Scholarships and Awards, Department of Africana Studies, University of Massachusetts- Boston