to work. Harris' colleagues praised his work, saying that it was high quality and very good for heavy element research. He and his colleagues also conducted what they called the “first aqueous chemistry of element 104”, to determine how the new element behaved and thus where it should be placed on the periodic table. Two research teams were simultaneously working to discover elements 104 and 105. One was Harris's team at the University of California-Berkeley and the other was a team of Russian scientists. Both teams successfully isolated the two elements around the same time in 1969 and 1970, so there is dispute over which team was actually the first to isolate the elements. In 1997 the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry settled the dispute: element 104 was given the name suggested by the American research team, rutherfordium, after the influential British physicist. Element 105 was subsequently given the name dubnium, representing the city, Dubna, where the Russian team worked. As head of the Heavy Isotopes Production Group, Harris and his team continued the search for other heavy elements which might be more stable and therefore useful for medicine, energy, or other purposes. Six years after discovering elements 104 and 105, Harris took a position with the Berkeley Lab Office of Equal Opportunity. There he worked with Benjamin Pope to recruit more women and minorities to work at the lab, focusing on outreach at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and forming partnerships with engineering colleges. In 1977, Harris was promoted to Head of Engineering and Technical Services Division. He retired in 1988. During his career and after retirement, Harris worked with students in grade school and at the university level to encourage African Americans students into the sciences. This work earned him numerous awards from organizations including the National Organization for Equal Opportunity in Education, the Urban League and the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers. Awards Honorary PhD from Huston-Tillotson College (1973) Scientific Merit Award from the Mayor of Richmond, CA Certificate of Merit from the Black Dignity Science Association Organizations Harris was a part of the following organizations: National Society of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers Nuclear Target Society American Chemical Society AEC Transplutonium Program Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity References American nuclear physicists 20th-century American chemists 1932 births 2000 deaths People from Waco, Texas Military personnel from Texas Huston–Tillotson