Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., Esq. Chief Executive Officer and President Thurgood Marshall College Fund Prior to assuming the presidency of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, Mr. Taylor worked as a senior executive for IAC/InterActiveCorp—first as its Senior Vice President of Human Resources and then as the President & CEO of one of IAC’s operating subsidiaries, RushmoreDrive.com. Before joining IAC, Mr. Taylor was a Partner in the McGuire Woods law firm and president of that firm’s consulting business; General Counsel and Corporate Secretary for Compass Group USA and he held several senior human resources and legal executive roles with Viacom subsidiaries: Blockbuster Entertainment and Paramount Pictures. Mr. Taylor is the Past Chairman of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), one of the world’s largest professional associations with 235,000 members in 130 countries and has served on the boards of the Urban Leagues of Broward County and Mecklenburg County, the University of Miami President’s Council, Johnson C. Smith University and the Drake University Board of Trustees and the National YMCA Employee Benefits Plan. Mr. Taylor received his Bachelor of Science in Communications with general honors from the University of Miami, Master of Arts in Mass Communications with honors form Drake University and Doctor of Jurisprudence with honors form Drake University Law School where he served as Research Editor of the Drake Law Review and argued on the National Moot Court Team. He is a member of the Florida, Illinois and Washington, D.C. bars and holds a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) certification. 1 Dr. Norma Joyce Payne Founder and Board Member Thurgood Marshall College Fund Norma Joyce Payne currently serves as Executive Director of the National Alliance for Public Trust, a new organization committed to advancing principled leadership, inspired scholarship and trusted stewardship. She accepted this position following her recent retirement as Vice President, Office for the Advancement of Public Black Colleges and Council of Student Affairs of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC) in cooperation with the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU). OAPBC is an information and advocacy office that represents 40 of the largest and most prestigious historically black public colleges and universities in the nation and the Council on Student Affairs serves as the national voice for 213 public and land-grant universities. Before joining OAPBC, Payne was the president of Global Systems, Inc. and was a senior staff member under the Carter administration with the President’s Advisory Committee for Women; President’s National Advisory Council on Women’s Education Programs, and the White House Conference on Families. She taught at the former Federal City College and at George Washington University and currently serves as a Senior Social Scientist (consultant) with the Gallup Organization and as a member of the faculty in the School of Agriculture at Alcorn State University. An authority on women’s issues in relation to higher education and labor force participation, Payne has published and presented a number of papers on “Women in Administration in Higher Education”; “Women in Urban School Systems”; Women and the Consequences of Power”; “Maintaining the Competitive Tradition” in Minorities in Higher Education; “Hidden Messages in the Pursuit of Equality” in Academe; and “Black Colleges in an Expanding Economy” in the American Council on Education’s Educational Record. Payne received a bachelor’s degree in speech pathology from the former District of Columbia Teachers College and earned her master’s and doctorate degrees in education from the former Atlanta University. She received a Presidential Medal from Delaware State University in 2003 and has received honorary doctorates from Lincoln University of Missouri, Lincoln University of Pennsylvania, Kentucky State University and the University of the District of Columbia. She was inducted into the District of Columbia’s Hall of Fame in 2001. She served on the Board of Trustees of the University of the District of Columbia for nine years and served for two years as chair of the Board. In 1987, she created the nationally recognized Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF), designed exclusively for exceptional students at public black colleges and universities. She serves on the board of directors of TMCF; the national board of AARP; chairs the AARP Foundation board and has served on the distinguished Foreign Service Performance Evaluation Board and the Advisory Equity Council of the U.S. Department of State. She has traveled extensively in Africa, South America and Europe and most recently in Vietnam. 2 Rebecca A. Bennett Vice President, Chief Program Officer Thurgood Marshall College Fund Rebecca Bennett is the Vice President of Programs for the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF). She is responsible for managing and implementing Thurgood Marshall College Fund's national programs including faculty development, scholarship management, student leadership development, university capacity building, college recruitment, research and publications. Ms. Bennett also oversees the national program staff, which includes regional career counselors, scholarship managers, program coordinators, and program management staff. She is instrumental in guiding the Fund to implement its expanded programs in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), leadership development, and the development of new on-campus leadership programs. Ms. Bennett has over 20 years of professional experience in program and financial aid management. Rebecca began her career as a college recruitment manager for the United Negro College Fund where she served as an admissions and financial aid advisor for hundreds of students. She then went on to serve as the Assistant Director of Scholarship Programs at the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering. Ms. Bennett returned to the United Negro College to serve as the Executive Director for Programs. Ms. Bennett has had an accomplished career in scholarship and program management and HBCU capacity building programs. Ms. Bennett received her bachelor's degree in Management Information Systems from Pace University and is pursuing her master's degree in Business Administration from Mary Washington University in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Dr. Robert L. Ford Professor of Chemistry Director of the Center for STEM Education and Outreach (C-SEO) Texas Southern University Dr. Ford also serves as the Chair of the TSU Faculty Senate Mentoring Committee at Texas Southern University. Ford is GLOBE Partnership Coordinator for TSU and represents the College on the University Research Council. He has served as Associate Provost for Research at TSU, Vice President for Advancement and Research at Fort Valley State University, and Vice Chancellor for Research at Southern University in 3 Baton Rouge. He recently completed a one-year stint as Interim Chair of the TSU Chemistry Department. He represents TSU on the Greater Houston Energy Collaborative and led the University’s Texas Emerging Technology Fund Initiative. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Greater Houston Area American Red Cross Southeast Branch and founding Chairman of the Minority Serving Institution Research (MSIRP) Partnership, where he currently serves as Treasurer. Dr. Ford has expertise in project development and management, environmental and sustainable development, group facilitation, and small business and entrepreneurship development. He has international business and technology experience in South Africa, The Republic of the Gambia, Senegal, Nigeria, Taiwan, Germany, and The Netherlands. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from Southern University and A&M College in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Purdue University at Lafayette, IN, where he was recently recognized as a Distinguished Alumnus at both institutions. During his years at Xerox Corporation in Rochester, NY and Palo Alto, CA, Dr. Ford worked in the areas organic charge transfer complex materials development for improved photocopying applications (Webster Research Center) and flat panel display device technology development based on multicolor colloidal systems (Palo Alto Research Center). In the applied research arena, he conducted a feasibility study in the Republic of the Gambia relative to agricultural waste to energy for electricity production, and uranium enrichment processing in Germany and The Netherlands. Ford is currently working to establish a Center for STEM Education and Outreach at TSU and he is affiliated with the TSU National Transportation Security Center of Excellence focusing on Petrochemical transport. His current graduate student is conducting research in petrochemical fuels combustion and pollutant emissions. Current areas of research interest include petrochemical transport, STEM education, and environmental sustainability Dr. A. Anil Kumar Chairman, Department of Physics Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Prairie View A&M University A. Anil Kumar, Ph.D., heads the Department of Physics and is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering (PVAMU) at Prairie View A&M University in Prairie View, Texas. He obtained his Ph.D. (Physics) from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore; a M.Sc. (Physics) from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi; and a B.Sc. (Physics Honors) from Osmania University, Hyderabad. He works with multiple school districts on several issues: state and national standards; implementation issues; relevance of science in the global economy; necessity for increased enrollment in STEM disciplines; and teachers’ opportunities for funding 4 and professional development. For the past five years he has been directing Project XLR8, a high school redesign project, funded by the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He is currently working on a monograph whose subject is redesigning education (which is more a redesign of mindsets than that of schools). Since he joined PVAMU in 1985, he has received and managed more than $2 million in research grants and proposals during ‘89-’08 from federal, state and private agencies. He has contributed extensively to College level and University level research by authoring proposals in a variety of disciplines including: education, manufacturing, radiation, community and economic development with specific emphasis on workforce development – education, and training and retraining. For the past six years, he has been involved in Mentor-Protégé Program and small business mentoring activities. He has three products based on his earlier research that have potential for technology transfer and commercialization: (i) CSIM – Communication System Simulator: An in-house developed simulation program for evaluating signal performance through noise; (ii) CSPIFF – Circuit Simulation Program In presence of Fatal Faults: An in-house developed simulation program for estimating the reliability and fault-tolerance of large scale electronic systems; and (iii) Bone Conduction Headset: A duplex communication device based on the bone conduction mechanism, with applications to space communications, manufacturing plants, and persons with hearing impairments, among others. His educational experience spans teaching, mentoring and advising from freshman to doctoral level students. He affected major changes in the physics curriculum and degree program making it more relevant to today’s world. As a member of the Academy for Educator Development (Texas A&M University System’s Regents’ Initiative for Excellence in Education), he worked with several high schools on curricular alignment, teacher training and collaborative proposal development. For this effort he was one of five faculty members in the TAMU System to have received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Board of Regents. In March 2009, he was a recipient of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund’s Outstanding Achievement Award for School Reform. Kumar’s main interests outside of his work are: listening to and reading orchestral scores of western classical music; reading science fiction and novels based on law and courtroom scenarios; and volunteering to reach young children in the local community. Dr. Joseph L. Graves, Jr. Associate Dean for Research Professor of Biological Sciences Joint School of Nanosciences and Nanoengineering North Carolina A&T State University 5 Dr. Joseph Graves, Jr. received his Ph.D. in Environmental, Evolutionary and Systematic Biology from Wayne State University in 1988. In 1994 he was elected a Fellow of the Council of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS.) In April 2002, he received the ASU-West award for Scholarly Research and Creative Activity. His research concerns the evolutionary genetics of postponed aging and biological concepts of race in humans, with over sixty papers and book chapters published, and had appeared in six documentary films and numerous television interviews on these general topics. He has been a Principal Investigator on grants from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation and the Arizona Disease Research Commission. His books on the biology of race are entitled: The Emperor's New Clothes: Biological Theories of Race at the Millennium, Rutgers University Press, 2001, 2005 and The Race Myth: Why We Pretend Race Exists in America, Dutton Press, 2004, 2005. A summary of Dr. Graves’s research career can be found on Wikipedia, and he is also featured in the ABC-CLIO volume on Outstanding African American scientists. In November 2007, he was featured in the CNN Anderson Cooper 360 program on Dr. James Watson. He has served as a member of the external advisory board for the National Human Genome Center at Howard University. In January 2006, he became a member of the “New Genetics and the African Slave Trade” working group of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute of Harvard University, chaired by professors Henry Louis Gates and Evelyn Hammonds. He is currently serving as chair of the Senior Advisory Board for the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) at Duke University. He has been an active participant in the struggle to protect and improve the teaching of science, particularly evolutionary biology in the public schools. In 2007, he became a member of the inaugural editorial board of Evolution: Education and Outreach, published by Springer-Verlag. He has been a leader in addressing the under representation of minorities in science careers, having directed successful programs in California and Arizona. He is a member of the board of the Guilford Education Alliance. From 2005 – 2009, he has been a leading force in aiding underserved youth in Greensboro via the YMCA chess program. Dr. Jessica Han Assistant Professor North Carolina A&T University Researcher, Department of Biology Dr. Jian (Jessica) Han received her Ph.D in Nutrition from The Pennsylvania State University in 2001. She continued her postdoc training in Molecular Neuropharmacology from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and in Cancer Biology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. She published a number of peer-reviewed articles on iron metabolism in various research models and disease conditions. Dr. Han is currently an Assistant Professor at North Carolina A&T 6 State University. Her major research interest is nutritional prevention of cancer. Her current NIH SC2 grant proposal is on the genistein and iron interaction in breast cancer. She is a member of undergraduate research committee at North Carolina A&T State University. She is an active participant in several research collaboration teams such as 1) Biocomputational Evolution in Action (BEACON project between North Carolina A&T State University, Michigan State University, University of Texas, University of Washington, and University of Idaho; and 2) the Regional Collaboration on Drug Development and Nanopharmacology of the Joint School of Nanosciences and Nanoengineering administered by North Carolina A&T State University and the University of Carolina at Greensboro. Mr. Jerry L. Drew International Consultant Thurgood Marshall College Fund Jerry L. Drew has spent more than thirty years of his professional career as a strong advocate for international affairs on the African continent. He has worked for the government, private industry, and a number of non-profit organizations raising funds for advocating the cause of African interests in the U.S. He has used his executive management skills to raise more than thirty-one million dollars for implementation of numerous international programs and projects. Mr. Drew has an extensive network of international contacts that he has utilized effectively in broadening his experience in organizational development and strategic planning. Mr. Drew served as the Vice President and Executive Director of the Washington Office of the Africa-America Institute (AAI) from 1988 through 2001. Prior to his executive service at AAI he worked as a research associate in the Department of International Affairs of Howard University from 1983 thorough 1988 and directed the Technical Assistance Program and the Emphasis Africa Program of Sister Cities International from 1975 through 1979. Mr. Drew worked as a Foreign Service Officer for the U.S. Department of State from 1968 through 1975. He has traveled extensively in Africa, Latin America and Europe and most recently Asia. Mr. Drew earned a B.A. in Political Science and Public Administration from Michigan State University in 1965 and obtained his J.D. from the University of Iowa School of Law in l975. He had extensive international experience during his student days as a summer exchange student in 1965 at the University of Nigeria-Nsukka and as a summer law student at the University of Paris in 1975. He is proficient in French. Mr. Drew was born in South Fulton, Tennessee and raised in Chicago, Illinois and relocated to the Washington, D.C. area where he has resided since 1975. He served as a board member on the Advisory Board of the Kennedy Center African Odyssey Program, the D.C. Public School/Private Partnership Board, and the Business Advisory Committee for the D.C. Public School Partnership Board, the Pacifica Radio Foundation, and the WPFW-FM Radio Station Board Chair. He has also served as a member of numerous international and national organizations, including TransAfrica, the African Studies 7 Association, the National Society of Fund Raising Executives, the National Association of College and University Attorneys, and the Subcommittee on Africa of the Society for Public Administration. 8