Black Genius: Excellence in Education
- Black Genius:Excellence in Education
In 1933, Dr. Carter G. Woodson, author of the seminal book The Mis-Education of the Negro, https://asalh.org/document/the-mis-education-of-the-negro/, described how Black children were not appropriately supported in US schools. Woodson noted, "The same educational process which inspires and stimulates the oppressor with the thought that he is everything and has accomplished everything worthwhile, depresses and crushes at the same time the spark of genius in the Negro by making him feel that his race does not amount to much and never will measure up to the standards of other peoples."1 The Guest Co-Editors for this issue, Dr. Kelly J. Cross and Dr. Princess I. Imoukhuede, are exemplars for the theme—Black Genius: Excellence in Education. They specialize in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields, persisted in their education programs, and are successful in their careers as faculty and administrators in higher education.
As posited by Woodson, Dr. Cross and Dr. Imoukhuede had to be resilient and persistent because US schools were not designed to support their genius. Their successful journeys of resilience and persistence are featured in the short education and career biographies below.
Short Biographies of Guest Co-Editors
Dr. Kelly J. Cross, assistant professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) at Georgia Tech and Emory University, is a data-informed, culturally responsive practitioner, researcher, and educational leader. She earned her Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering from Purdue University in 2007 and Master of Science in materials science and engineering from the University of Cincinnati in 2011. Cross completed her doctoral program in the Engineering Education Department at Virginia Tech in 2015 and worked as a postdoctoral researcher with the Illinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Dr. Cross worked in the Department of Bioengineering to redesign the curriculum through the NSF-funded Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (RED) grant. She is a member of the ASEE Leadership Virtual Community of Practice (LVCP) that organizes and facilitates Safe Zone Training workshops. Dr. Cross has conducted workshops on managing personal bias in STEM, online and in person, in addition to faculty training on power and privilege. Her research interests include diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM, intersectionality, teamwork and communication skills, assessment, and identity construction. Her teaching philosophy focuses on student-centered approaches such as problem-based learning and culturally relevant pedagogy. Dr. Cross's complementary professional activities promote inclusive excellence through collaboration. She is an NSF CAREER awardee, has delivered multiple distinguished lectures, and has received a national mentoring award.
Dr. Princess I. Imoukhuede is the Hunter and Dorothy Simpson Endowed Professor and chair of the Bioengineering Department at the University of Washington. Professor Imoukhuede earned her BS in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where her research earned her the coveted Class of 1972 award, presented annually to the project that most improves the quality of life through its impact on people and/or the environment. Professor Imoukhuede was also an NCAA All-American athlete, garnering these honors three times [End Page 4] for placing at the NCAA Track and Field Championships. She was honored with the 2002 Betsy Schumaker Award (given to the MIT female athlete of the year), was selected for a COSIDA/VERIZON Academic All-America team, and was awarded an NCAA postgraduate scholarship. Professor Imoukhuede pursued graduate study in bioengineering at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, CA. There, she studied a key protein involved in epilepsy, the GABA transporter, GAT1, while also performing research on nicotine addiction using molecular imaging. Professor Imoukhuede was the first African American woman to be awarded a bioengineering PhD by Caltech. Professor Imoukhuede completed her postdoctoral fellowship in the Biomedical Engineering Department at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and continued to faculty positions at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Washington University in St. Louis, and the University of Washington. Professor Imoukhuede's research examines mechanisms regulating cell signaling in cardiovascular diseases and in labor and delivery. Her focus on research...
