The Black Engineer of the Year Conference has selected Emmanuel Cephas, Jr., a senior physics and computer science major, for its Student Leadership Award, an honor given to only one undergraduate student a year nationally.
The award recognizes a student who has demonstrated leadership in engineering through personal accomplishments and developments and has promoted science, technology and black self-reliance.

Cephas is also a member of the Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program, which is designed to assist first-generation, low-income college students in pursuing doctoral degrees. He spent last summer researching gravity theory at the point where Albert Einstein left off with theoretical physicist Dr. James Gates at the University of Maryland.

A Baltimore native, Cephas has held internships for three consecutive summers with NASA — two summers at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt and last summer at the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. His goal is to someday work for NASA after completing his education.

Cephas said he finds the thought of winning this national award “exciting, overwhelming, but I’ve been so busy I can’t really get my mind around it.”

In addition to his double major in physics and computer science, Emmanuel is a mathematics minor and member of Kappa Mu Epsilon, the national mathematics honor society. He also has a minor in graphic arts. In his free time, he enjoys dancing and writing poetry and stories.

Cephas tries to share his enthusiasm with others, serving as a tutor and mentor at FSU and speaking to students at his old high school, Lansdowne High in Baltimore. “I like the idea of showing someone else that a dream is attainable. The students see me: I’m closer to their age and I look like them. We have had similar challenges and struggles.”

Emmanuel will receive his award at a February 21 ceremony in Baltimore. The Black Engineer of the Year Awards are sponsored by the Council of Engineering Deans of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Lockheed Martin Corporation, Daimler-Chrysler Corporation, and U.S. Black Engineer and Information Technology magazine.

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