Pictured with Siemens Foundation Vice President Jennifer Harper-Taylor (far left) during a campus visit are (left to right) Baton Rouge Magnet High School student Alexis Gosserand, SU electrical engineering junior Yancy Dawson, SUBR Chancellor Kofi Lomotey, Baton Rouge Magnet High School student Shelby Fleury, SU civil engineering freshman Jillian Crawley-Foster, and SU System President Ralph Slaughter.

STEM scholars highlight campus visit by Siemens VP

Products and participants of the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) programs were part of the delegation assembled to welcome a representative of the Siemens Corporation to the Southern, Baton Rouge campus.

The visit by Jennifer Harper-Taylor, vice president, Siemens Foundation, follows the awarding of a $25,000 Siemens Fellowship to the Southern University System to aid programs focusing on science and technology. The Siemens Foundation is the charitable arm of the international technologies innovator Siemens Corporation.

The funding will support the Strengthening Minority Access to Research and Training (SMART) program and its Timbuktu Academy on Southern University, Baton Rouge campus.

SU System President Ralph Slaughter hosted a donor recognition breakfast where SMART and Timbuktu program managers introduced several of the programs’ scholars to Harper-Taylor. Students presented were Timbuktu Academy pre-college scholar Shelby Fleury, a junior at Baton Rouge Magnet High School and Timbuktu Academy undergraduate scholar Jillian Crawley-Foster, a freshmen civil engineering major at Southern University; SMART Pre-college Algebra Course scholar Alexis Gosserand, a senior at Baton Rouge Magnet High School and SMART Research Experiences for Undergraduates scholar Yancey Dawson, a junior Southern University electrical engineering major who earned two associate degrees from SU-Shreveport (mathematics and general studies) and was one of 23 recipients of a 2008 Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund Siemens Teacher Scholarship.

The Southern representatives also on hand included Kofi Lomotey, SUBR chancellor; Diola Bagayoko, director, Timbuktu Academy; Bronwyn T. Dickson, HBCU-UP SMART program manager; Brenda R. McNeely, LS-LAMP program administrator; and Ayana McHenry, major gifts coordinator, SU System Foundation.