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BILL COSBY COMMITS TO THE DECADE OF BLACKS IN SCIENCE

Bill Cosby has added dimension to his personal accountability movement by extending it to a very different segment of the Black community.  Before 600 people last night at the Benjamin Banneker Legacy Awards Gala held at the JW Marriott hotel in Washington D.C., Dr Cosby challenged African American scientists to speak more publicly about the important contributions they are making in the fields of math, engineering and science.  He stated that the world needs to know about the level of scientific excellence that exists in the Black community and the significant contributions to scientific discovery being made by African American scientists.

The Benjamin Banneker Awards Gala is an annual event designed to honor individuals and organizations that have made major contributions towards increasing the number of African Americans involved in science, technology, math and engineering.   The award presenters and most of the award recipient are working scientists involved in cutting edge research. Among them, Dr. Warren Washington, is a member of the team that shared the Nobel Prize for climatological research last month

This year’s Banneker Institute Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Dr. Walter Massey. His many accomplishments include serving as the director of the National Science Foundation and the Argonne National Laboratory, Provost of the University of California System, President of Morehouse College, and President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  It is hard to find a significant scientific institution in the United States that has not been touched by the hand of Dr. Massey. Presenting this award to Dr. Massey was the winner of the Banneker Institute Youth Legacy award, Tyrome Miller, a sophomore at Oxon Hill High School in Prince Georges County, MD.

Other Banneker award winners include Dr.  Diola Bagayoko, Director of Timbuktu Academy at Southern University; Dr. Mae C. Jemison, NASA’s first female African American astronaut and founder of the Dorothy Jemison Foundation; Esteria Johnson, Chief Learning Consultant for Lockheed Martin and the visionary behind their IT Apprenticeship Program;  Vice Admiral Adam M. Robinson, Chief of Navy Medical Corps; and Dr. Ronald E. Mickens, Professor of Physics at Clark Atlanta University, who is singularly responsible for chronicling scientists and mathematicians of the Black Diaspora.