Campus.News reports that Rensselaer President Shirley Ann Jackson will be named Black Engineer of the Year at a conference organized by U.S. Black Engineer and Information Technology Magazine this week in Baltimore.

Tyrone D. Tayborn chairman and CEO of Career Communications Group (publishers of USBEIT) said, "Dr. Jackson is a distinguished theoretical physicist with a long string of 'firsts' to her credit. She is the first woman to win the prestigious Black Engineer of the Year Award; the first African American on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the first African American to head that agency; and the first African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. at MIT in any discipline...."

As an organization, the RCNJ feels particularly close to Dr. Jackson because she lived and worked in New Jersey for many years. She held positions at Bell Laboratories and Rutgers University prior to her appointment by President Bill Clinton as Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. She left the NRC to become the President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in July 1999.