EECS Juneteenth Celebration

Join us for the EECS Department’s third annual Juneteenth Celebration, which will take place as a part of the U-M Juneteenth Symposium, which is organized by the Office of Academic Multicultural Initiatives.

The EECS Department, in conjunction with the Graduate Society of Black Engineers and Scientists (GSBES), will represent the STEM community at the symposium on June 16 at 11:00am. YOU are invited to attend!

Join the EECS Juneteenth Celebration

Zoom link: https://umich.zoom.us/j/94175459547

Passcode: 858712

About the event

The EECS Juneteenth Celebration will take place virtually and will include

• a welcome address by Michigan Lieutenant Governor and EECS alum Garlin Gilchrist
• a performance of Lift Every Voice and Sing, the Black National Anthem
• a reading of the history of Juneteenth
• a reading of the Emancipation Proclamation
• a panel of four prominent EECS and U-M alums: Todd P. Coleman, Angelique Johnson, James Mickens, and Donnell Walton, who will also talk about his reflections on this 50th anniversary of the year Willie Hobbs Moore became the first Black woman PhD in Physics. The panel is moderated by Prof. Herbert Winful.

About the invited panelists/speakers

Todd P. Coleman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Bioengineering, and by courtesy, Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. He received BS degrees in electrical engineering (summa cum laude), as well as computer engineering (summa cum laude) from the University of Michigan. He received MS and PhD degrees from MIT in electrical engineering and computer science. He did postdoctoral studies at MIT and Mass General Hospital in quantitative neuroscience. He previously was a faculty member in the Departments of Electrical & Computer Engineering and Bioengineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and the University of California, San Diego, respectively. Dr. Coleman’s research is very multi-disciplinary, using tools from applied probability, physiology, and bioelectronics. Examples include, for instance, optimal transport methods in high-dimensional uncertainty quantification and developing technologies and algorithms to monitor and modulate physiology of the nervous systems in the brain and visceral organs. He has served as a Principal Investigator on grants from the NSF, NIH, Department of Defense, and multiple private foundations. Dr. Coleman is an inventor on 10 granted US patents. He has been selected as a Gilbreth Lecturer for the National Academy of Engineering, a TEDMED speaker, and a Fellow of IEEE as well as the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. He is currently the Chair of the National Academies Standing Committee on Biotechnology Capabilities and National Security Needs.

Angelique C. Johnson is CEO & Founder of MEMStim LLC, a company that produces implantable electronics to treat neurological disorders. With a doctorate in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, she has produced many patents, acquired funding from the NSF, and received millions in prestigious & highly competitive SBIR awards from the NIH. Dr. Johnson’s expertise is sought out at the highest levels, including the US House of Representatives Small Business Committee. She has served as a speaker for the eighth district of the Federal Reserve, the Royal Academy of Science International Trust; the International Chamber of Commerce; and the United Nations Assembly on Women and Girls in Science. She lends her leadership to the Standing Council, NSF Engineering Research Visioning Alliance; the KY Statewide EPSCOR Committee; the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering SBIR; the NSF NNCI External Advisory Board and Medtech Color. Combining her passion and her expertise in the areas of innovation and entrepreneurship, Dr. Johnson founded Vissionaireum– an organization that promotes, trains, and equips underserved entrepreneurs to achieve their God given visions. She has been featured prominently in several media outlets including NBC Universal; National Public Radio, in The Root news site; Louisville Insider, and Business First Magazine.

James W. Mickens is the Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science at the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University.  Mickens earned a bachelor of science in computer science from Georgia Institute of Technology in 2001 and received his PhD in computer science and engineering from the University of Michigan in 2008. His research focuses on distributed systems, such as large-scale services and ways to make them more secure. Mickens worked as a member of the Distributed Systems group at Microsoft Research from 2009 through 2015. He spent a semester at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) through the MLK Visiting Professors program, becoming an associate professor at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences in 2015.  He was promoted to full professor with tenure in 2019. In 2020, Mickens was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.  In 2021, he and Jonathan Zittrain began the Institute for Rebooting Social Media, a three-year-long BKC project to research and create new ideas to improve social media.

Donnell Walton is Director of the Corning Technology Center-Silicon Valley.  He did his undergraduate studies at North Carolina State University, graduating summa cum laude with a double major in Electrical Engineering and Physics.  He went on to earn a PhD in Applied Physics at the University of Michigan where he conducted theoretical and experimental research on fiber lasers.  He spent 3 years on the faculty of Howard University during which time he set up a fiber laser research facility and earned an NSF CAREER award.  He then joined Corning Research Lab in Corning, NY in 1999.  At Corning he established the company as a world leader in high-power, kilowatt level fiber lasers and then became the manager of worldwide applications engineering for Gorilla Glass, helping grow revenue from $20M to over a billion.  In 2016 he was appointed Director of the Corning Technology Center-Silicon Valley.  In 2021 he was awarded the ECE Willie Hobbs Moore Distinguished Alumni Lectureship by the University of Michigan.

Moderator: Herbert Winful is a University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor, the Joseph E. and Anne P. Rowe Professor of Electrical Engineering, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and a Professor of Physics at the University of Michigan. He earned a BS degree in electrical engineering from MIT in 1975 and a PhD from the University of Southern California in 1981. After six years as a Principal Member of Technical Staff at GTE Laboratories in Waltham, Massachusetts, he joined the University of Michigan in 1987 as an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science and was promoted to full professor four years later. His many contributions to photonics and quantum electronics include pioneering work on nonlinear optical periodic structures, the nonlinear dynamics of coherently-coupled laser arrays, the physics of quantum tunneling time, polarization instabilities, and distributed-feedback fiber Raman lasers. Professor Winful is a Life Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the Optical Society, and the National Society of Black Physicists. His many awards include the State of Michigan Teaching Excellence Award, the Harold R. Johnson Outreach and Diversity Award, and the 2020 IEEE Photonics Society Quantum Electronics Award.