Diversity in Academia
A Look at
Gender, Race, and Ethnicity
in Science and Engineering Departments


William A. Wulf, Ph.D. William Wulf is on leave from the University of Virginia, where he holds the AT&T chair in engineering and applied science, to serve as president of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and vice chair of the National Research Council (NRC). Previously, Dr. Wulf served as the assistant director of the National Science Foundation (NSF). Prior to joining the University of Virginia, he founded and was CEO of Tartan Laboratories and was a professor of computer science at Carnegie-Mellon University. Dr. Wulf is a member of the NAE; and a fellow of the American Association of Arts and Sciences (AAAS), the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He is the author of over 80 papers, holds one US patent, and has supervised over 25 Ph.D.'s in computer science. Dr. Wulf received his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Virginia.

Donna J. Nelson, Ph.D. Dr. Nelson is an associate professor of chemistry at the University of Oklahoma; she is the only female faculty member to have completed six years in her department. Her degrees include a B.S. in chemistry at the University of Oklahoma and a Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of Texas with M.J.S. Dewar. She did her postdoctorate at Purdue University with H.C. Brown and joined the University of Oklahoma in 1983. She has an active research group in physical organic chemistry, developing a new synthetically useful technique for gathering mechanistic information on a very wide range of addition reactions of alkenes. She also studies the representation of females and minorities in various disciplines of science and engineering in academia. Her diversity surveys originally appeared in the magazine of the Association for Women in Science (AWIS) and it will carry a regular column by Dr. Nelson reporting the results and discussion of these surveys, as they become available.

Lawrence Norris, Ph.D. Dr. Norris currently serves as the treasurer of the National Society of Black Physicists, and was the former chair of the Committee on Minorities in Physics of the American Physical Society. He also is an Engineering Duty Officer for the United States Naval Reserves. He received his bachelor degree from the University of Michigan, and his graduate training at Oxford University, Cambridge University, University of Warsaw in Poland, and Northwestern University. His research interests include theoretical molecular biophysics. Dr. Norris is currently working on protein that plays a role in heart disease and cancer, and starting a project involving the biophysics of cocaine abuse, and developing therapies to treat cocaine abuse. His work involves computational chemistry, chemical and materials physics, applied mathematics and numerical analysis.

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Directorate for Science and Policy Programs
     Center for Science, Technology, and Congress

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Last updated: October 15, 2001