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Equity, Diversity & Inclusion
Celebrating Black Engineers in STEM
As part of Black History Month in McKelvey Engineering and across the nation, we honor and celebrate our Black students, faculty, staff and alumni. We respect Black history and achievements. And we mark this important month as a time to learn, reflect and grow as a community.
We encourage the entire McKelvey community to take time this month — and beyond — to participate in events, read about Black McKelvey engineers, and engage in thoughtful dialogue. Our work to end systemic racial inequality and disparities does not start and end during this month, but we can use this month to come together as a school. We invite you to visit this webpage throughout the month to identify ways that you can engage as McKelvey commemorates Black History Month.
Celebrating Black engineers
“The life and contributions of the Knox brothers clearly shows that while brilliance is precious, having an environment where brilliance from all sources can be realized and appreciated is what paves the way for revolutionary scientific breakthroughs.”
Sharniece Holland, MEMS lecturer, recently co-authored a feature on William and Lawrence Knox, brothers who made significant contributions in a number of areas, including the Manhattan Project in the 1940s.
The Knox brothers
We are McKelvey
McKelvey Engineering offers a wide range of opportunities for Black students, from the National Society of Black Engineers to research-intensive summer programs. But we realize there is an opportunity for growth in the areas of equity, diversity and inclusion, and we are committed to addressing longstanding social injustice and inequality within the school and larger community.
We are developing new programs, policies and resources, but most importantly, we are listening. By working together, we can enact change.
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Alumni William Hopkins (left) and Arnold Donald co-founded the Society of Black Engineers (SOBE) as WashU Engineering students in the 1970s. The group later became a chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), which now has more than 700 chapters and 21,000 members worldwide.
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The Washington University Summer Engineering Fellowship (WUSEF) program encourages exceptional students from backgrounds underrepresented in the STEM fields to participate in month-long engineering research at WashU each summer.
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Among McKelvey Engineering's goals are to hire more Black, Brown and women faculty and launch new graduate and undergraduate student recruitment efforts to recruit more women; Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC); first-generation and low-income students.
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Among McKelvey Engineering’s action items for change is to increase graduation rates for women, BIPOC, first-generation and low-income undergraduate students and to improve placement after graduation for women and BIPOC undergraduate and graduate students.