"The Legacy of the Black Scientific Renaissance at Bell Laboratories in the '70s, '80s and '90s" will be the subject of a talk by William Massey, Princeton's Edwin S. Wilsey Professor of Operations Research and Financial Engineering, at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 13, in the Friend Center Convocation Room.
According to Massey, who was a researcher at Bell Labs for 20 years, the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s at Bell Labs were to black scientists what the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s was to black artists.
Also this month, Massey will be honored for his contributions to engineering at the 2008 Black Engineer of the Year Awards conference in Baltimore. In 2006, Massey received the Blackwell-Tapia Prize, given in recognition of his outstanding record of achievement in mathematical research and his mentoring of minorities and women in the field of mathematics.
Massey, the first African American Princeton undergraduate to have become a full professor at the University, also founded and continues to provide leadership for the annual Conference for African American Researchers in the Mathematical Sciences.
Massey's talk is sponsored by the Wesley L. Harris Scientific Society and the School of Engineering and Applied Science.
