Sharing Untold Stories of Columbia’s Engineers

In 2009, Ursula Burns MS’80, a Columbia Engineering alum and then CEO of Xerox became the first Black woman to run a Fortune 500 company.

Her story is exceptional, but not unique. Engineers of color are making history every day. Alex Tsado BS’12 travels the world to engage Africans—and Black Americans—in the wonders and opportunities in the field of AI. Alexsandra Guerra BS’12 co-founded a company that enables other corporations to meet carbon emission standards. Bianca Howard MS’11/PhD’16 is analyzing data to make buildings more energy efficient, expertise she passes on to the next generation as a faculty member at Loughborough University in England.

Yet despite their accomplishments, the stories and experiences of many engineers of color are still unheard and untold. Columbia Engineering is looking to address that in a new effort to showcase the diversity that has long been part of the community.

Tentatively called “In These Hallowed Halls,” a new documentary and networking project aims to do that by creating an accessible archive to widely share a multitude of stories featuring engineers of color. As much as possible, these stories will be pulled from direct sources—historical documentation and images, interviews, and the alumni themselves.

The seeds for the idea came from the School’s diversity, equity and inclusion commission. As the group was reviewing various DEI projects from other schools, Biomedical Engineering Professor Helen Lu, who also serves as the commissions’ co-chair, said the group chanced upon the MIT Black History project. The timing was fortuitous.

“Luckily, when I mentioned this during one of our commission meetings with working group leads, Professor Christine Hendon, a faculty member in electrical engineering and an MIT alum herself, shared that she had contributed to the project while at MIT,” Lu said.

The commission created a grant proposal for Hallowed Halls in October last year, and two months later they were awarded funding by the Office of the Provost. Lu, along with Hendon and Brian Smith, assistant professor of computer science, will spearhead the project. Shavonna Hinton, the school’s inaugural assistant dean of DEI, is also leading the project for the school, and Alumni Relations Director Mairead Moore will work with alumni whose stories they plan to feature.

In general, people of color are not well represented in STEM, but representation is particularly low in engineering fields. According to the National Science Foundation, white males made up 64% of all engineering bachelor's degrees earned in 2018. Of those bachelor’s degrees, barely above 4% and 12% were earned by Black and Latino graduates, respectively. While the percentage of bachelor’s and master’s degrees earned by Black and Latino students has increased by around 7% over the past decade, according to NSF data, organizers of “Hallowed Halls” said they seek to raise those numbers by boosting the confidence of those thinking of breaking into the engineering field.

“This project can certainly help those who are starting STEM careers,” Hendon said. “It can help them see there is a lot of opportunity to be successful, and not only be successful, but be appreciated and celebrated within STEM.”

The Hallowed Halls project plans to first establish a select alumni committee that will offer thoughts and advice before the team puts out a broad call for Black or Latino alumni to participate. With a goal to identify and feature at least 20 alumni, with more brought in over time, committee members said the alumni’s input will be invaluable going forward.

"We're excited to create an alumni committee that will spearhead how to approach the process, including offering suggestions for how to approach it," said Moore. "Our community has great ideas on how we can best obtain and share these stories."

Engineers of color have contributed to Columbia Engineering since the school’s earliest days. Just 10 years after its founding, the school’s first Black graduate James R. Priest, the son of a former slave, enrolled in 1873 and quickly rose to the top of his class. After graduating in 1877, he became a mathematics professor in Liberia before tragically dying young in 1880. His story has continued to inspire Columbia engineers all the way to present day. In 2020, the engineering school created a new scholarship in Priest’s name for students who’ve demonstrated leadership and support for the Black community. Similarly, in 2021, the school established the Alumbra scholarship for those actively engaged in the Latino community.

Using a multimedia slate of articles, videos and more, project organizers plan to weave stories like Priest’s into a detailed narrative that brings such history to life. Working with Columbia’s chapters of the National Society of Black Engineers and the Society of Hispanic Pre-Professional Engineers, as well as the Black Alumni Council and Latino Alumni Association of Columbia University, project leads are looking forward to digging deep to showcase as many stories as possible.

Smith himself graduated from the engineering school with a PhD in 2018, and he said this project “keeps the door open” for the next generation of minority STEM leaders going out into the world.

“It normalizes the culture of embracing underrepresented voices in STEM,” he said. “For us to be super innovative in STEM fields, we have to think about and represent all of humanity, and of course it takes all of humanity to do that.”

Current plans are also to host a keynote event later this year along with a preliminary showcase of the website. While details for the event are still in the works, the aim here is to connect alumni with current students and staff, fostering new relationships and starting new conversations about inclusiveness and representation. While the full website is expected to go live in the first quarter of 2023, organizers said they don't expect the effort to end once it comes online. The format opens up opportunities to continually add interviews.

As noted in the school’s DEI commission action plan, projects such as Hallowed Halls can have a transformative impact on both individuals and wider institutional culture. Hinton said the project presents a blueprint for both Columbia University and beyond to recognize minority students that have gone overlooked. More than that, she hopes current engineering students see what’s possible thanks to the successes of their peers, both past and present.

“It is our hope that future generations of engineers of color see themselves in the narratives shared by our alums,” Hinton said. “‘You cannot be what you cannot see,’ and in showcasing these stories we hope this will bring encouragement and optimism to aspiring engineers to persist in their academic and professional pursuits.”

Any alumni interested in participating in the Hallowed Halls project can contact [email protected].