Dr. John B. Slaughter

A former director of the National Science Foundation, president of Occidental College in Los Angeles and chancellor at the University of Maryland, College Park, Dr. Slaughter has a long and distinguished background as a leader in the education, engineering and the scientific communities. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), where he has served on the Committee on Minorities in Engineering, chaired its Action Forum on Engineering Workforce Diversity, and is a current member of the NAE Council. Dr. Slaughter is also a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Tau Beta Pi Honorary Engineering Society. In 1993, he was named to the American Society for Engineering Education Hall of Fame, and in 2001 was named an Eminent Member of the Eta Kappa Nu Society, the honorary society of electrical engineering.

Dr. Slaughter began his professional career as an electronics engineer at General Dynamics prior to spending 15 years at the U.S. Navy Electronics Laboratory in San Diego where he rose to the position of department head for Information Technology. He has been director of the Applied Physics Laboratory and professor of electrical engineering at the University of Washington; academic vice president and provost at Washington State University; and most recently The Irving R. Melbo Professor of Leadership in Education at the University of Southern California. He has served as president and CEO of the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering since August 2000.

He serves on the board of directors at Solutia, Inc. In February 2006, he was appointed to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Dr. Slaughter earned a Ph.D. in engineering science from the University of California, San Diego; an M.S. in engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and a B.S. in electrical engineering from Kansas State University. He holds honorary degrees from more than 25 institutions. Winner of the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Award in 1997 and UCLA's Medal of Excellence in 1989, Dr. Slaughter was also honored with the first "U.S. Black Engineer of the Year" award in 1987 and the Arthur M. Bueche Award from the NAE in 2004.

Married to Dr. Ida Bernice Slaughter, an educational consultant and former school administrator, Dr. Slaughter has two children, a son, Dr. John Brooks Slaughter, Jr., DVM, and a daughter, Ms. Jacqueline Michelle Slaughter.

Dr. Demetrius D. Venable

Demetrius D. Venable is Professor of Physics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Howard University.  He has been at Howard since 1995 and served as Chairman of Department from July 1, 1995 to June 30, 2007.  He is the Director and Principal Investigator of the “Center for the Study of Terrestrial and Extraterrestrial Atmospheres” funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). From December1999 through June 2000 he also served as the Interim Associate Provost for Research at Howard University. Recently he has served or continues to serve as Principal Investigator or Co-Principal Investigator on a wide variety of both scientific and educational sponsored research projects Dr. Venable is a native of Powhatan, VA. He attended undergraduate school at Virginia State University where he received the Bachelor of Science Degree in Physics (1970).  He received both the Master of Science Degree (1972) and Doctor of Philosophy Degree (1974) in Physics from the American University in Washington, DC.  Prior to coming to Howard, Dr. Venable held positions at IBM as a senior associate engineer, at Saint Paul’s College as an assistant professor of physics and director of the cooperative physics program and at Hampton University where he was professor of physics and held various administrative positions including department chairman, Dean of the Graduate College, Vice President for Research, and Executive Vice President and Provost.

Among Dr. Venable’s awards are the American Association of Physics Teacher’s Distinguished Service Citation for contributions to teaching in physics and NASA’s Distinguished Public Service Medal for contributions to research infrastructure building.  This latter award is the highest award that NASA can make to a non-government employee.

Dr. Venable’s research specialty is in optical physics. He has been awarded funding for more than 40 projects and has numerous professional publications and presentations at professional meetings.  His research has involved radiative transfer modeling and remote sensing techniques.  His works have included effects of multiple scattering in marine environments, insolation and turbidity measurements, and remote sensing of the atmosphere. Most recently he has assisted in the development of the Howard University Beltsville Research Campus (BRC) with focus on predictability of weather and climate; hands-on experiences for students with instrumentation including operations, methodology, easurement capabilities, data handling/reduction, and error analysis; and weather and air quality monitoring.  He is providing leadership in the development of the Raman Lidar Program at the BRC which involves collecting data to supplement radiation measurement instrumentation co-located at the laboratory as required by BRC Modeling Team and NOAA and NASA sponsors; and investing atmospheric dynamics with emphasis on water vapor mixing ratios in lower troposphere.

Dr. Sekazi Kauze Mtingwa

 Sekazi Kauze Mtingwa graduated Phi Beta Kappa with B.S. degrees in physics and mathematics from MIT in 1971 and Masters and Ph.D. degrees in theoretical high energy physics from Princeton University in 1976.  He held postdoctoral positions at the University of Rochester, University of Maryland - College Park, and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, where he was a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow.  Subsequently, he served in staff physicist positions at both Fermilab and Argonne National Laboratory.  At Fermilab, besides playing an important role in the discovery of the top quark, Mtingwa and James Bjorken developed the theory of intrabeam scattering, which sets the performance limitations on essentially all modern accelerators, including Europe’s Large Hadron Collider.  Mtingwa has produced more than one hundred theoretical and experimental publications in many areas, including science and technology policy and accelerator, nuclear, elementary particle, and plasma physics.

During 1991-2004, Mtingwa was Professor of Physics at North Carolina A&T, where he served as Department Chair during 1991-1994 and founded its graduate program in physics.  During 2001-2003, he was Martin Luther King, Jr. Visiting Professor of Physics at MIT and then served two years as Visiting Professor of Physics at Harvard University.  Currently at MIT, he has redirected his career by becoming Faculty Director of Academic Programs in the Office of Minority Education.  In this role, he serves more than two hundred students per year.

Mtingwa was one of the founders and principal author of the Strategy and Business Plan of the African Laser Centre (ALC), which is a South African-based nonprofit network of more than thirty laboratories throughout Africa that are engaged in laser-related research and training.  He currently serves as the ALC Representative to the Americas.  Mtingwa served from its inception in 1998 until 2008 on the U.S. Department of Energy’s Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Committee, where he played a crucial role in guiding the nation’s path forward on nuclear energy R&D.  As a member of the American Physical Society’s Panel on Public Affairs, Mtingwa co-chaired a 2007 study on electricity storage technologies, which are crucial for enabling wind and solar energy.  In 2008, he concluded chairing another study on U.S. nuclear workforce readiness to meet future nuclear challenges in such diverse areas as nuclear power, nuclear medicine, and homeland security.  This study has been widely reported in the news media.

In 2007, Mtingwa received the Science Education Award and was the keynote speaker at the National Council of Ghanaian Associations’ March 10 Benefit Gala in New York City that celebrated the 50th Anniversary of Ghana’s Independence.  The award was for outstanding contributions to science education in Ghana and among African peoples in general.