Contact: Phil Hearn
Minority students will be encouraged to pursue graduate degrees in engineering during a workshop scheduled on the Mississippi State campus Friday [Nov. 19].
The workshop, "Empowering Undergraduate Students for the Pursuit of Graduate Education," will be held 10-11:15 a.m. in the Dunn Conference Room, 235 McCain Hall. The university's Bagley College of Engineering and Office of Graduate Studies are co-sponsoring the program.
"The goal of the event is to empower students and inspire them to think about graduate school," said Tommy Stevenson, diversity program coordinator for the college. "There is a growing need to produce more students of color in engineering."
Workshop speakers include:
-- Jacqueline Chestnut, who in 2000 became the first African-American to receive a doctorate in industrial engineering from MSU. A native of Reidsville, N.C., Chestnut is employed with General Motors in Warren, Mich., as a harmony and human factors engineer. She earned bachelor's and master's degrees in industrial engineering in 1983 and 1984, respectively, from North Carolina A&T University in Greensboro.
-- Maxine Jones, a third-year graduate student at Texas A&M University, where she is pursuing a doctorate in chemical engineering. The Roxie native earned a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering in 2002 from Mississippi State, where, as a Wal-Mart Competitive Edge Scholar, she was featured in national television advertising by the retail megabusiness.
-- Terrance Dubreus of Starkville, a doctoral student in MSU's computational engineering program.
For more information, contact Tommy Stevenson at (662) 325-8449.