Researchers' Biography

DR. TODD E. SHURN

KAI A. R. THOMAS

ABDOULAYE FOFANA

Dr. Todd E. Shurn

Todd is a graduate of Benton Harbor High School in Benton Harbor, Michigan. He attended the University of Michigan from where he received a B.S.E. (1983) and a M.S.E. (1984) in Industrial and Operations Engineering concentrating in Operations Research and Computer Science. During the summers he worked in technical capacities for Whirlpool, the State of Wisconsin, and IBM. In 1984, he accepted a permanent position with IBM Federal Systems Division in Houston, Texas. His initial responsibility was verification of the onboard space shuttle flight computer operating system.

In 1986, Todd was selected as a critical member as a critical team member of the IBM Space Station Support Environment (SSE) proposal team. His selection was based on excellent job performance and technical expertise acquired as graduate student at the University of Michigan. He was the youngest person and only minority to present IBM's technical proposal to NASA.

Starting in 1987, Todd participated in an IBM Federal Systems Division working group responsible for definition of systems engineering tools to be used across IBM to improve software development productivity and product quality. He was also part of a department developing the Common Reuse Environment (CRE), an automated repository for software components that facilitates software reuse.

In addition to his technical assignments, Todd was very active promoting engineering to inner city youths in Houston. He organized and participated in weekly math and science tutorial sessions at Cripus Attucks Middle School. He was chairperson of a city wide engineering field day that involved over 1000 Houston area middle school students and included appearances by the late Congressman Mickey Leland, Astronaut Charlie Bolden and prominent Houston Oilers.

Kai A. R. Thomas

Kai is a graduate of Charlotte Amalie High School in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. She graduated among the top ten of her class and received the Hess Oil Virgin Islands and VI Cement & Building Products four year academic scholarships. She attended the University of Maryland at College Park for a period of two years where her major was undecided. She then transferred to Howard University's Department of Systems and Computer Science in the School of Engineering where she obtained her bachelor's degree in Systems and Computer Science in May 1996. Currently she is pursuing a masters degree in Computer Science which is anticipated in May 1997.

During the summer of 1994, Kai worked as a summer intern at Martin Marietta Corporation in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania where she developed a C and SQL program to produce and Indented Bill of Materials Report for the user. This program was part of an effort to bring an entire system from the mainframe to a client-server platform.

At Howard University, Kai has received a Xerox academic scholarship in the fall of 1994 and she was the 1995 winner of the Microsoft Technical Minority Scholarship. In addition, she is a member of the Systems and Computer Science Society and presently maintains a cumulative grade point average of 4.0.

Abdoulaye Fofana

Abdoulaye is a graduate of Badala High School in Bamako, Mali. He graduated among the top five of his class and received a chancellor Scholarship to Elizabeth City State University, NC. He attended ECSU in North Carolina where he obtained two Bachelor Degrees in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics in May 1996. Currently he is pursuing a masters degree in Computer Science which is anticipated im December 1997.

During the Spring 1995 Abdoulaye participated in a computer graphic/Virtual Reality research project group at Elizabeth City State University sponsored by NASA. They developed animated and graphical scene using the Renderman Shader Language.
At Howard University, he has received a research assistantship from HUFAST. In addition , he is one of the system administrators for the Institute for Multimedia Applications and presently maintains a a cumulative grade point average of 4.0.

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