Julian Earls (born 1942), American physicist. Earls received his bachelors degree in physics from Norfolk State University in 1964, and a masters in radiation biology in 1965 from the Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. He then moved to the NASA Lewis Research Center as a medical physicist where he earned a PhD in radiation physics from the University of Michigan in 1972. Earls spent his career at NASA where he championed equal opportunity and became the first African-American section head, office chief, division chief and deputy director. In 2003 he was appointed Director of NASA's Glenn Research Center. He retired in 2005. Photographed at the Glenn Research Center, Ohio, USA, in 2005.