2006 Award Recipients

AAAS Mentor Award

Gary S. May

Gary S. May

Gary S. May is recognized for his outstanding contributions in recruiting, mentoring, and educating members of underrepresented groups in science and engineering careers.

Gary S. May is a professor and the Steve W. Chaddick School Chair in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at the Georgia Institute of Technology. In this capacity, he serves as chief academic officer and provides leadership to more than 100 faculty members and 2,500 students in the School. His research interests include semiconductor process and equipment diagnosis, process control, process simulation, yield analysis and enhancement, and equipment and process modeling. Other areas of interest include semiconductor device physics, statistics, artificial intelligence, and expert systems.

Dr. May is the founder of Georgia Tech's Summer Undergraduate Research in Engineering/Science program, a summer research program designed to attract talented minority students into graduate school. The program's capacity has reached 250 students and 90 percent of the past participants have gone on to graduate school or plan to enroll in graduate school. He also is the founder and director of Facilitating Academic Careers in Engineering and Science program, a program designed to encourage minority engagement in engineering and science careers.

Throughout his career at Georgia Tech, Dr. May has mentored 33 students (primarily African Americans) who received Ph.D. degrees, mostly in ECE. Ten of the 33 Ph.D. recipients are women. In 1998, he received a National Science Foundation Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate award and 16 of his mentees are in faculty positions.

Dr. May has served for nearly two decades on the governing board of the National Society of Black Engineers, a student based engineering and physical sciences society. He has published 182 articles and has given 111 technical presentations in his research area. He received a B.E.E. degree in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1985 and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of California at Berkeley in 1987 and 1991, respectively.