Georgia Tech Engineering Dean Gary May delivers Kuh lecture on increasing diversity

Gary May (EECS M.S.’88, Ph.D.’91), engineering dean at the Georgia Institute of Technology, returned to campus on March 10 to deliver the fifth annual Kuh Lecture on the topic of broadening diversity and participation in STEM fields.

“There can be no doubt that American innovation depends on a smart, diverse technical workforce,” said Dean Shankar Sastry as he introduced May, “to ensure that diversity, engineering schools need to keep getting better at attracting and graduating more students from underrepresented groups — and few people have done more to meet that challenge than our Kuh Lecturer, Berkeley alumnus Gary May.”

Last year, President Obama honored May with the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring. Shelia Humphreys, Berkeley’s EECS emerita director of diversity, was also honored.

The Kuh lecture is supported by the generosity of Dean Emeritus Ernie Kuh and his wife Bettine. Kuh, a national leader in engineering education and a trailblazer in the design of integrated circuits and systems, died last June.

This year the Kuh Lecture also  served as the keynote address of EECS’s Berkeley Engineering Stars in Technology program, or BEST. The daylong program celebrated the accomplishments of African American engineers, and brought outstanding alumni to campus to meet current students to discuss the challenges and opportunities in technology today.