Tuskegee University Visit Nov 1-2, 2021
To enhance US leadership in discoveries and innovation, Columbia University and Tuskegee University scientists and engineers have formed an alliance to build a bridge between our respective communities of Harlem, NY and Tuskegee, AL. This bridge will join Black and white, North and South, Urban and Rural, Ivy League and HBCU, and many other divides that limit the full potential of our country. An Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant of $250,000 will help the team promote greater diversity in STEM at the graduate level, and help faculty research collaborations.
Professor Tommy Vaughan is spearheading the effort to build ties with the College of Engineering at Tuskegee University, a private, historically black university in Tuskegee, Alabama. Tuskegee University was home to the renowned scientist George Washington Carver, a botanist and agricultural scientist who promoted alternative crops to cotton and methods to prevent soil depletion. Professor Vaughan’s grandfather H.A. Vaughan, was the county agricultural extension service agent for Macon County and had the honor of supplying many of the seeds, fertilizers and farming implements used by Dr. Carver. Prof. Vaughan and a team of BME faculty and staff are working to build on that ancestral connection.
In November 2021, Professor Vaughan, Professor Chris Boyce (CHEME), Professor Aaron Kyle (BME), and Professor Kyle Mandli (APAM) were welcomed by Tuskegee University President Dr. Charlotte P. Morris, Interim Provost and Dean of Engineering Dr. Heshmat Aglan, and Acting Dean of the College of Engineering Dr. Benjamin Oni.
Prior to the Nov 2021 visit to Tuskegee, Professor Vaughan, Professor Boyce (CHEME), and the BME DEI Committee participated in an Engineering Ethics Symposium on October 26, 2020, hosted by Tuskegee University's College of Engineering. This two-hour symposium consisted of a moderated discussion leading to a plan for educational exchange and research collaboration between our two institutions.
The Tuskegee collaboration includes faculty research collaborations and a BME program development in progress. In 2021 Columbia hosted two summer students with support from TU.
