Black Engineering professors provide inspiration

As the first black Engineering professors in recent memory, Kwabena Boahen and Camillo Taylor prove motivational. Kwabena Boahen never used to see himself as a role model. But as one of the School of Engineering and Applied Science's first black professors in recent years, the Bioengineering professor is beginning to realize that he has more of an impact than he expected. In a school where 5 percent of the Class of 2001 is African American, the additions of Boahen and Computer and Information Science Professor Camillo Taylor, who hails from Jamaica, to the staff are an important step toward increased minority presence on campus, Engineering senior Latressa Fulton said. "Coming into the Engineering School and going through that curriculum is difficult," said Fulton, president of Penn's chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers. "Seeing someone in front of you who looks like you lets you know that you can do it," she said, adding that Boahen's presence is "most definitely a positive influence." The Engineering School is making an effort "to have the makeup of our faculty be more reflective of society and our student body," Engineering Dean Gregory Farrington said. And with the hirings of Boahen and Taylor this fall, the school seems to be making progress in its quest. The two men are "extraordinarily talented scholars," Farrington said. "Their main impact will be enhancing the scholarly reputation and teaching excellence of SEAS." Taylor, who graduated from Harvard University in 1988 with a degree in electrical computer and systems engineering and received his doctorate in Electrical Engineering from Yale University in 1994, was the only student of color at both programs. "I think people were surprised that I wanted to do well," Taylor said. "It did sometimes strike me that people are less likely to take you seriously because of the color of your skin." But Taylor said he did not let these setbacks stand in his way. And he hopes that black Engineering students at Penn will do the same. "I am willing to do anything I can to let them know they have a place in the Engineering School," said Taylor, who is currently teaching CIS 580, a course in machine perception. For Boahen, race had not always been a prevalent issue. "I grew up in Ghana, where I was the majority," Boahen said. "I didn't consider being black a big part of my identity." This attitude made it easier for him to adapt to life in an American institution where he was part of the minority. Boahen graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 1985, where he was one of 12 black students in a class of 300. "I didn't identify with one group in particular," he said. "I had friends who were white, black, Indian and Asian." In the past few years, however, he has come to see his blackness as part of his identity. Boahen, who earned a doctorate in electrical and computer engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 1989, plans to teach a graduate course in neuromorphic systems next semester. Currently, he is working with two Engineering undergraduate students on a senior design project. "We are trying to reverse-engineer the brain and recreate the structures we find and the functions they perform in a different medium," Boahen said. Fulton said the members of the NSBE are anxious to meet the two young men and "let them know that we are very happy to have them here."