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WORk-LiFE baLaNCE JACKSON STATE STUDENTS FINDING RIGHT BALANCE


Antoinette Anderson T


Three Jackson State University graduate engineering students are proving that balancing work-life issues isn’t solely the domain of real-world professionals, managers and executives.


Ales-cia Malone, Antoinette Anderson and Nikeya Peay are computer engineering graduate students at Jackson State engaged with top-level laboratory research involv- ing high-performance reconfigurable computers. Each is expected to receive her master’s degree in 2011 and then move directly into a Ph.D. program.


Their research—mapping scientific kernels onto reconfig- urable computers using field-programmable gate arrays— is intense and cutting edge, Malone says. Their project is funded by the National Science Foundation’s Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation Bridge to Doctorate Program, which assists institutions that have significant enrollments of minority populations that are underrepre- sented in science, technology, engineering and math- ematics (STEM) fields.


Each student has a particular research focus on the project, conducted in conjunction with the Engineer Re- search and Development Center in Vicksburg, MS, which is operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Each was brought together to form their research consortium


10 WOMENOFCOLOR | FALL 2010


Nikeya Peay


Ales-cia Malone


after serving as interns at the center. Malone says the research is designed to help speed the computing power of supercomputers while reducing power-supply require- ments for running applications.


“By our getting the research experience already, we know how we can use our research for our Ph.D.s and ultimately when we get into our careers,” Malone, a native of Cleveland, MS, says.


Balancing the demands of their academic pursuits and research interests with campus, home, community and business interests requires “time management, a good support group and a lot of prayer,” says Malone, who has a five-year-old son. A study, “Times Are Changing: Gen- der and Generation at Work and at Home,” released in March 2009 by the IBM Corp.-funded Families and Work Institute noted that there is no difference today between young women with and without children in their desire to move to jobs with more responsibility – something in full accord with Malone’s ambition.


Anderson presented on behalf of the research group at the Advancing Minorities Interest in Engineering (AMIE) national conference held in September 2010 at Jackson State, which is where she met the publisher of Women of Color and USBE&IT, Tyrone Taborn. The occasion also


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