BESAC President's Message
Hello BESAC Members and Friends!
As I reflected upon BESAC's present and future, three weeks into the Spring season, the feeling of renewal, re-emergence, and rebirth abounds, with falling numbers of COVID-19 cases, increasing numbers of fully vaccinated adults, and teen and child vaccination availability on the near horizon.
During our Black History Month panel event, we sought to dispel vaccine myths and combat vaccine hesitancy, if you have not seen the video, please look for the link within the digest.
Thanks again to our tremendous panelists. As we look forward to the summer of 2021 and beyond, the executive board, which welcomes new members, Shantisa Norman and Elmer Whitehead, as well as the return of Dr. Nerayo Teclemariam, and Rori Abernethy in new roles is looking to ambitiously double our membership, continue our involvement in the CAA Summer Welcome Event, forge new alliances with other Black alumni organizations through participation in an inaugural Black Alumni Advisory Council, establish regular communication through this digest, continue our outreach and engagement with BESSA and BGESS, execute on the distribution of a BESAC scholarship, and pilot a student mentorship program.
We cannot achieve many of these goals of expanded influence and reach within the campus, Black Cal, and Black STEM communities without your participation. We welcome your ideas, energy, and input in any form and will also solicit information by way of a participation survey in the upcoming months. We recognize that many BESSA and BGESS alumni give back to their communities in a myriad of impactful ways and we are hopeful that you will also find BESAC's mission worthy of your time and energy this year and in years to come.
I can say personally, that I have found the last three years of planning and collaboration to launch BESAC to be very rewarding. I would also like to take this time to thank Kirk Tramble for his incredible dedication as BESAC's first president and am pleased that he will continue to carry on the mission as our President Emeritus.
Thank you for your time and attention. Stay Healthy and Safe!
Miller Allen, Ph.D.
BESAC President
California Alumni Association Updates
Black Alumni Council and Black Summit
Several Black Alumni Clubs are coming together to create a Black Alumni Council and planning a Black Alumni Summit. We are still in the beginning stages. As a member of BESAC, you can be an integral part of reshaping UC Berkeley into an institution that better supports Black students and Black STEM students. We will keep you posted on this new venture!
The African American Initiative Scholarship in the media!
BESAC Highlights
BESAC Alumni Highlight
Dean Reginald DesRoches
Dr. Reginald DesRoches (born April 30, 1967) is a civil engineer and, as of July 1, 2020, serves as the Howard Hughes Provost at Rice University. From 2017 to 2020, he served as the William and Stephanie Sick Dean of Engineering at the George R. Brown School of Engineering at Rice. From 2012 to 2017, he served as the Karen and John Huff Chair at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Reginald DesRoches was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and grew up in Queens, New York City. He attended St. Francis Preparatory High School in New York City and the University of California, Berkeley, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering in 1990, an Master of Science in Civil Engineering in 1992, and a doctorate in Structural Engineering in 1998. In 2015, he was inducted into UC Berkeley’s Civil and Environmental Engineering Academy of Distinguished Alumni. At Rice University, DesRoches serves as the chief academic officer of Rice and its 7,500 students, eight schools and more than 700 faculty. He previously served as the William and Stephanie Sick Dean of Engineering at the George R. Brown School of Engineering at Rice. In this position, DesRoches provided leadership to a top-ranked engineering school with nine departments, 137 faculty and 2,500 students.
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BGESS Highlights
Go to the Berkeley Black Graduate Engineering and Science Students Facebook page for highlights and updates.
BESSA Highlights
BESSA Week!
BESSA is having a BESSA filled week from 4/19 - 4/23!
Please contact Vice President (Internal) Omotara Oloye for more information and Zoom Links. omotara.oloye@berkeley.edu
Here’s the week’s events!
April 19th 6:30 - 8PM: BESSA Game Social
April 20th 8 - 9PM: Open Board Meeting & Meet the BESSA board
April 21st Wednesday 7-8PM - Go Live with BESSA Board
April 22nd 6:30 - 8:30: Anti-Blackness in Tech @ Berkeley
April 23rd 6 -7:30 Friday - Networking w/Berkeley Profs
Please contact Vice President (Internal) Omotara Oloye for more information and Zoom Links. omotara.oloye@berkeley.edu
Go to the Black Engineering and Science Student Association website for more highlights and updates.
BESF Highlights
Professor Rediet Abebe
Rediet Abebe is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley and a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. Abebe holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Cornell University and graduate degrees in mathematics from Harvard University and the University of Cambridge. Her research is in artificial intelligence and algorithms, with a focus on equity and justice concerns.
Abebe is a co-founder and co-organizer of the multi-institutional, interdisciplinary research initiative Mechanism Design for Social Good (MD4SG). Her dissertation received the 2020 ACM SIGKDD Dissertation Award and an honorable mention for the ACM SIGEcom Dissertation Award for offering the foundations of this emerging research area. Abebe's work has informed policy and practice at the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the Ethiopian Ministry of Education.
She has been honored in the MIT Technology Reviews' 35 Innovators Under 35 list as a pioneer and the Bloomberg 50 list as a one to watch. Her work has been featured in BBC, ELLE, Forbes, and Shondaland and presented at venues including the National Academy of Sciences, United Nations, and Museum of Modern Art. Abebe also co-founded Black in AI, a non-profit organization tackling representation and equity issues in AI. Her research is influenced by her upbringing in her hometown of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Learn more about Professor Rediet Abebe
A Computer Scientist Who Tackles Inequality Through Algorithms
Rediet Abebe uses the tools of theoretical computer science to understand pressing social problems — and try to fix them.
Black Engineering and Science Faculty (BESF)
There is currently a historic number of Black Engineering and Science Faculty at Cal. Learn more about them by checking out the Black Engineering and Science Faculty slides
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