Emeritus Prof. Augustine O. Esogbue, FAS, FAEng, MNOM
Professor Augustine O. Esogbue, now Emeritus, is the 2006 Laureate of the prestigious Nigerian National Order of Merit (NNOM) prize in engineering and technology. He received his B.Sc. degree (Electrical Engineering U.C. Berkeley Option, with Minor in Mathematics) from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1964; M.Sc. (Industrial Engineering and Operations Research) from Columbia University, New York in 1965, and the Ph. D. (Engineering- Industrial and Systems Engineering/Operations Research and Control Theory) from the University of Southern California in 1968 becoming the first person of African descent to earn this degree. He did additional studies at University of California, Berkeley, and earned a postdoctoral certificate in Dynamics of Health Systems Modeling from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge (1975). From 1968-1972, he was Assistant Professor of Operations Research and Member of the Systems Research Center at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland Ohio – the first academic program in Operations Research in the world. He joined the Faculty of Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) in 1972 as an Associate Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering under a joint appointment with the Health Systems Research Centre and was quickly promoted in 1977 to the rank of a Full Professor, with tenure, in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech becoming the first African to attain this rank in a major research university in the U.S. and the first BLACK full Professor in Georgia Tech’s history. His School of Industrial and Systems Engineering has been ranked consistently the # 1 Graduate Program in the U.S. for the past 24 years consecutively by U. S. World News and Report Magazine. He played a major role in his university, Georgia Tech becoming the #1 producer of black engineers in the U.S. Professor Esogbue, is Founder and Director, Intelligent Systems and Controls Laboratory, and Founder and Director, Minority Undergraduate Scholars Engineering Research Program (MUSERP) designed to produce topnotch black research engineers for industry and graduate schools. He is the 1979 Founder and President of AESO Systems International, engineering, management, and computers consulting company that has solved numerous technological problems for the U.S government, industries and some developing countries. His high profile world appointments include i) Associate Director of the Institute for Research and Development in Nuclear Energy (IRDEN, 1984-86), ii) Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research and Management Science at the world famous University of California, Berkeley (1988). iii) Adjunct Professor of Community Medicine at Morehouse School of Medicine iv) Adjunct Professor, Department of Mathematical and Computer Sciences at Atlanta University, v) Faculty Member, Columbia University Seminars in Water Resources and Pollution, vi) Visiting Distinguished Professor of Engineering and Operations Research, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2002) and vii) Honorary Professor, Department of Petroleum Engineering, Daiqing Petroleum Institute in Heilongjiang Province, China (2001- ). His China experience also includes mentorships of professors and doctoral students at the prestigious Tsinghua University, Beijing.
Among his numerous awards and recognitions are i) First Winner of the Golden Torch Award for Lifetime Achievement in Education in March 1999 by National Society of Black Engineers ii) Appointment in 2003, following the Columbia Accident, by NASA as one of only 2 academicians and the only Nonwhite to a panel of 9 distinguished members of the reconstituted Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) which serves as the Senior Board of Directors of NASA. iii) Award in 2006 of NASA Public Service Medal, for helping to revive and resurrect the U.S. space shuttle flights after years of being grounded, iv) Winner of NASA’s Space Flight Awareness Team Award for the year 2006 for their outstanding contributions to U.S. Space mission. v) Proclamation in 2004, by the City Council of the City of Atlanta, “August 16th 2004 as the Dr. Augustine O. Esogbue Day in the City of Atlanta in recognition of his outstanding service and contributions to the City of Atlanta, the State of Georgia and the United States of America”. vi) Distinguished Recipient of UCLA Engineering 2010 Alumni in Academia Award, vii) Appointment as, Member of the Academic Advisory Board of the prestigious national organization, Lead America which is “dedicated to the transformation of our world’s next generation of young leaders by inspiring, educating and instilling in them ethical and principled leadership values, attitudes and skills”. viii) His accomplishments are chronicled in several Who’s Who including Who’s Who in the World, International Who’s Who in Engineering, American Men and Women of Science, Who is Who in Technology Today, The International Directory of Distinguished Leadership, International Who’s Who of Intellectuals, African Mathematicians of the Diaspora, Who’s Who Among African Americans, Member of the 100 Black Men of America.
Professor Esogbue has been elected a Fellow of countless world learned societies: the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), the Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences (INFORMS, the African Scientific Institute (ASI), the Nigerian Academy of Science (NAS) whom he served as Academic Secretary physical sciences, and The Nigerian Academy of Engineering. Professor Esogbue has made many and prolonged contributions to Nigerian development primarily in capacity building. Recent beneficiaries include the National Mathematical Centre, the Nigerian Defense Academy, Kaduna, National War College, Nigerian Agency for Space Research and Development (NASRDA), and the Nigerian Atomic Energy Commission (NAEC), various Nigerian universities and research centers, the 2012 International Conference on Research and Development in Engineering, the 2012 Annual Conference of the Nigerian Institute of Industrial Engineers and the 2012 National Productivity Day Seminar, Abuja.