John Brooks Slaughter will be the featured speaker at USC Rossier’s Master’s Commencement Ceremony on Friday, May 15. Slaughter holds joint appointments at USC Rossier and the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.
Slaughter is an engaging speaker, who this year has delivered memorable keynote addresses to USC audiences, including remarks in January at the conference “College Admission 2025: Embracing the Future,” sponsored by Rossier’s Center for Enrollment Research, Policy, and Practice. In that presentation, he set his personal recollections of growing up in Topeka, Kansas, against the backdrop of the legal fight of Brown v. Board of Education. An excerpt of that talk—“Remembering the Past, Embracing the Future”—appears in the spring 2015 issue of Rossier’s alumni magazine, Futures in Urban Ed.
In February, he was invited to speak for the “What Matters to Me & Why” series co-hosted by USC’s Office of Religious Life and the Levan Institute for Humanities and Ethics. You can watch the video of that presentation on YouTube.
Slaughter has had a remarkably distinguished career—from engineer to the first African-American to direct the National Science Foundation (NSF), from two-time college president to beloved professor with joint appointments at USC Rossier and USC Viterbi.
Slaughter holds a PhD in engineering science from the University of California, San Diego (1971), an MS in engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles (1961), and a BS in computer sciences from Kansas State University (1956).
Beginning in 1956, Slaughter worked for more than two decades as an engineer, beginning with General Dynamics Convair before going on to positions with the US Naval Electronics Laboratory Center in San Diego and the Applied Physics Laboratory at the University of Washington. Following his historic appointment as the first African-American to direct the NSF (1980–82), Slaughter served as president of the University of Maryland (1982–88) and Occidental College (1988–99).
He is a Member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE); a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; and the founding editor of the international journal Computers & Electrical Engineering.
He holds honorary degrees from more than 25 institutions and has received numerous awards, most recently, in October 2014, the Reginald H. Jones Distinguished Service Award from the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME), an organization he once led as president and CEO. In March 2015, President Barack Obama named Slaughter as a recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring.
“I have been privileged to work with many bright young people who have inspired me with their energy, aspirations and dedication,” remarks Slaughter, who joined Rossier in January 2010 with the goal of increasing minority participation in the science and engineering fields. “I have received more from them than I have given.”
