Page 2 - Florida Sentinel 12-25-20

Feature
After Earning Ph.D., Tampan Headed To Join Staff Of MIT
BY GWEN HAYES Sentinel Editor
First Black female to graduate from Univer- sity of South Florida with Ph.D. Degree in Computer Science and Engineering.
After earning a Doctorate degree in Computer Science and EnginAeering, a Tampa native is on her way to join- ing the staff at the Massachu- setts Institute of Technology (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, MA.
Shamaria Engram re- ceived her Ph.D. degree vir- tually on Saturday, December 12, 2020, with the graduates of the University of South Florida. Her re- search focus area was in Soft- ware Security.
“I am the first Black woman to graduate with a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of South Florida,” she said.
Shamira earned her high school diploma from Strawberry Crest High School in 2011, which was the first graduating class of the school.
From there, she studied at Bethune-Cookman Uni- versity, where she graduated
with a B. S. degree in Com- puter Engineering, and a 3.97 GPA.
It was not all work and no play, however. Shamaria was also a member of the softball team.
Her initial dream job as a high school student was to become an FBI agent by studying Criminal Justice. She met an agent coming out of a fast food restaurant, asked a few questions about being an agent. She was told that the FBI would teach her about Criminal Justice – going to college he suggested she should specialize in Computer Science or Ac- counting. And she did.
While at Bethune-Cook- man, she did an internship at Iowa State University at the Virtual Reality Applications Center. It was during this in- ternship that she was intro- duced to research.
“This internship was one of the reasons I decided to go to graduate school. Another moment that solidified my decision to attend graduate school, was an HBCU hackathon that was hosted by Facebook, Google, Stan- ford University, and Code 2040.
“During this event I met a lot of software engineers that mentored and inspired me to
SHAMARIA ENGRAM
GRFP), the Florida Educa- tion Fund’s McKnight Doc- toral Fellowship, the National GEM Consortium Fellowship, and the Black- ComputeHer Fellowship.
Shamaria explains her journey to MIT:
“Under the National GEM Consortium Fellow- ship, I was able to complete an internship at the MITRE Corporation in San Diego, California, and under the NSF GRFP, I was able to complete an internship at MIT Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts.
“While at USF, I have mentored several undergrad- uate students, and I have also helped with recruiting Black and Hispanic students for USF’s Computer Science and Engineering program.”
Shamira is a member of New Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church, and served on the audio-visual team.
Shortly after the New Year begins, she’ll be on her way to Massachusetts, via the highway.
attend graduate school,” she further explained.
To attend USF, Shamaria received the Florida-Georgia Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Partic- ipation Bridge to the Doctor- ate Fellowship. She also received a number of fellow- ships during her time at USF,
including the National Sci- ence Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF
PAGE 2-A FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY FRIDAY, DECEMBER 25, 2020