BLACK ENGINEER OF THE YEAR AWARD WINNERS
dures, along with integration of all modifications across the company’s factories. Neal has led a test equipment-funding pro- posal, brought about facility modifications with a capital request submittal and participated on a manufacturing team to develop a plan for an award fee— all in just his current role at Raytheon. For his Six Sigma Greenbelt project, he led a team on the Non Line-of-Sight Launch System that ultimately resulted in $3.1 million in cost avoidance with their software loading station. Neal spends his spare time volunteering and serving as a mentor and tutor for local youth. His wife, Dr. Tarin Bynum Neal, is a pediatrician, and the two serve as anchors for each other’s professional success.
OUTSTANDING TECHNICAL CONTRIBUTION–INDUSTRY
Jama A. Mohamed Senior Principal Systems Engineer
Raytheon Company T
he actual distance from Mogadishu, Somalia, to Boston, Mass., is 7,441 miles. The personal and educational mileage of that trip traveled by Jama Mo- hamad is much greater. For the past 12 years, Mohamed
has built a national reputation as an expert in radar signal pro- cessing at the $25 billion Raytheon Company, which specializes in defense, homeland security and government markets. The nominating material in Mohamed’s Black Engineer of the Year Award (BEYA) application package noted that he has developed sophisticated high-fidelity simulations of phased array radars for air traffic control, Navy surface combatants, elevated cruise mis- sile defense, and air and missile defense.
Recently he has worked as the modeling and simulation team
leader on a U.S. Air Force contract for the Space Fence Radar Program. Its goal is, “to design and develop new ground-based surveillance radar that can detect and track thousands of space objects many times smaller than any detectable with today’s space surveillance sensor network.” The program will allow military and commercial satellite directors to avoid possible collisions with space junk. Mohamed, whose parents were illiterate nomads, is a graduate of the Mogadishu Technical High School. At age 18, he moved to Saudi Arabia to earn money to fur- ther his education, which led Mohamed to the United States. He earned his bachelor of science and master’s degrees in electrical engineering at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from MIT, where he held a $100,000 National Consortium for Graduate Degrees for Minorities in Engineering and Science Fellowship. He also received a $20,000 MIT fellowship. Three days after receiving his doctorate, Mohamed went to work at Raytheon’s Integrated Defense Systems (IDS). Dr. Ellen J. Ferraro, director of IDS engineering, has known him since then. At Raytheon, Mohamed was selected to join the Systems Engineering Technical Development Program that teaches
26 USBE&IT I WINTER 2013 D
onnell Walton is an optical physicist. Over the past five years, his outstanding leadership skills have changed the game. Walton managed a global team of 25 engineers spread across the world in the United States, Korea, Taiwan, China, Japan and Germany. He led the group to support a growing business for Gorilla Glass. Gorilla is the trademark for Corning’s break-resistant chemically strengthened cover glass now in use in more than 700 million hand-held devices. Walton grew Gorilla Glass beyond smart phones into laptops, using the science of leadership as a member of the Corning community responsible for acceptance of this glass into devices such as Smart phones, tablets, laptops, TVs, large touch walls and now presently expanding into the automotive industry. Walton was the technical guru who met with global customers, describing the advantages of the glass and worked with them to adopt the technology. Many YouTube videos on the Internet show Dr. Walton describing the technology at major conferences. Gorilla Glass is one of the fastest growing businesses at Corning and Dr. Walton is relentless in adding more design wins and applications for this won- derful technology. All thanks to his technical competence, amazing teamwork and professional attitude in dealing with customers. Second major contributions for Dr. Walton are his achieve- ments in fiber optics and lasers. For nine years, he led groups working on optical amplifiers and high power lasers and was able to achieve a 1,000-watt laser, exceeding all expectations. Watson joined Corning in 1999 after working as a professor at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Walton worked in science and technology where he performed and led research in optical fiber amplifiers and lasers. In 2008 he joined the Gorilla team as a senior applications engineer for the burgeoning infor- mation technology sector. Walton graduated summa cum laude from North Carolina State University in 1989 with bachelor’s degrees in physics and electrical engineering before getting his Ph.D. in applied physics in 1996 from the University of Michigan. He has authored and coauthored over 50 technical reports and 14 patents.
www.blackengineer.com
engineers how to prepare to lead as technical directors, chief engineers and senior architects. Now Ferraro says of Mohamed, “His efforts to improve our defense capabilities by providing innovative and affordable solutions will benefit our warfighters around the world.”
Remembering his journey, Mohamed, who has three patents and has developed or managed 10 IDS projects, finds time to assist other by teaching Radar Signal Processing class, and men- toring younger engineers.
OUTSTANDING TECHNICAL CONTRIBUTION–INDUSTRY
Donnell Walton, Ph.D. Manager World-Wide Applications Engineering Gorilla Glass Corning Incorporated
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