Since Pamela McCauley won the 1989 Black Engineer of the Year Award (BEYA) in the Student Leadership category she has set a high standard of excellence.

After completing her industrial engineering doctorate with the aid of National Science Foundation fellowship,  she became the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in the state of Oklahoma.

The Black Engineer of the Year Student Leadership Award is given to undergraduate and graduate students who are outstanding contributors on university campuses and in local communities.

In 2016, Malachi Nichols, currently, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Arkansas,  won the award for serving as a robotics teacher, and a director’s assistant to an AmeriCorps Service Member during his undergraduate degree.

Marvin Carr (left) won the 2015 BEYA for Student Leadership for work that went on to become the topic for his doctoral research in electrical and electronics engineering at Morgan State University.

Carr coordinated a program with Baltimore’s Department of Park and Recreation that offered robotics, math, and maker education opportunities for young people aged 4 to 18. He also founded the Innovative Institute of Robotics Innovation and Systems Engineering.

This February, Amanda Nash, a biomedical engineering senior at the Cullen College of Engineering at the University of Houston, received a Student Leadership Award at the BEYA STEM Conference for excellence in undergraduate biomedical research.

Other Student Leadership Award winners at the 2018 BEYA Student Leadership gala included Latarence Butts and Daziyah Sullivan, two Florida A&M University – Florida State University (FAMU-FSU) College of Engineering students, who are working to diversify and educate the environmental movement.

Naomi Mburu, a 2018  chemical engineering graduate, is the first student in UMBC history to receive the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship. As a Rhodes Scholar, Mburu is attending Oxford University in England to pursue her Ph.D. in engineering.

Past Student Leadership Award Winners at BEYA

2017

Meshika Brown
Mechanical Engineering and Math Student
Prairie View A&M University

Samuel Sentongo
Cadet
U.S. Air Force Academy

2016

Andre Evans
Midshipman First Class
U.S. Naval Academy

2013

Je’aime Powell
NOVA Southeastern University
Ph.D. Computer Information Systems

2012

Candace P. Cooley
Department of Defense
Missile Defense Agency

2009

Midshipman Jordan Onque Blake
Ocean Engineering
U.S. Naval Academy

Ryan Clark
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

2008

Arielle Drummond
Ph.D. candidate in Biomedical Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University

2007

Julius Gunn
University of Tennessee
Rolls-Royce

2006

Marquita Adams
College Co-op Student
General Motors Powertrain

2005

Shannon Chambers
Undergraduate Student, Department of Civil Engineering
Florida A&M University

Terri R. Norton
Ph.D. Student, College of Engineering
Florida A&M University

Chad D. Sterling
Computer Science Major/Intern
University of California Davis/Hewlett-Packard Company

Emmanuel A. Cephas
Student
Frostburg State University

2003

Justin M. Bond
College Student Intern
Powertrain Division, General Motors/Michigan State University

2002
Roberto W. Young
University of Memphis
The Boeing Company

2001
Clifton Sean Martin
Electrical Engineering Student
Morgan State University