1. Arlie Petters is a founder of mathematical astronomy, focusing on problems connected to the interplay of gravity and light and employing tools from astrophysics, cosmology, general relativity, high energy physics, differential geometry, singularities, and probability theory.
Arlie Petters was the dean of academic affairs for Trinity College of Arts and Sciences and associate vice provost for undergraduate education at Duke University.
Arlie Petters was raised by his grandparents in the rural community of Dangriga, Belize.
Arlie Petters's mother immigrated to Brooklyn, New York, and married a US citizen, with Arlie joining them when he was 14 years old.
Arlie Petters remained at MIT for two years as an instructor of pure mathematics and then joined the faculty at Princeton University in the Department of Mathematics.
Arlie Petters was an assistant professor at Princeton for five years before moving to Duke University.
Arlie Petters is known for his work in the mathematical theory of gravitational lensing.
Arlie Petters's work culminated in book, entitled Singularity Theory and Gravitational Lensing, which he co-authored with Harold Levine and Joachim Wambganns.
Arlie Petters has served as director of the Reginaldo Howard Memorial Scholarship program at Duke University.
Arlie Petters has been active in the African-American community particularly through his mentoring, recruiting, and lecturing.
Arlie Petters has received several community service awards for his social outreach.
Arlie Petters is the first tenured African-American professor in mathematics at Duke University.
Arlie Petters is very involved in the Belizean community and founded the Petters Research Institute in 2005 to help train Belizean young people in STEM fields and foster STEM entrepreneurship.
Arlie Petters has written five books, three of them science and mathematics problem-solving books for Belizean students.
Arlie Petters served the Government of Belize as chairman of the Council of Science Advisers to the prime minister of Belize.
Arlie Petters was won an Alfred P Sloan Research Fellowship in Mathematics, and a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation, and was the first winner of the Blackwell-Tapia Prize.
Arlie Petters was selected in 2006 by the National Academy of Sciences to be part of a permanent Portrait Collection of Outstanding African-Americans in Science, Engineering, and Medicine.
In 2008 Arlie Petters was included among the Human Relations Associates' list of "The Twenty-Five Greatest Scientists of African Ancestry,"going back to the eighteenth century.
Arlie Petters received an honorary Doctor of Science from his alma mater, Hunter College, in 2008.
Arlie Petters was named by the Queen of the United Kingdom in 2008 to membership in the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.
Arlie Petters became in 2011 the first Belizean to receive the Caribbean American Heritage Award for Excellence in Science and Technology.