Professor Giles Elected AAAS Fellow
Professor Roscoe Giles (ECE) has been elected a Fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS) for his leadership and major contributions to increasing the participation of underrepresented groups in computing disciplines, particularly via leadership in curricula and organizations that advance inclusion.
His work on equity and expanding representation has been a constant in all his professional and academic endeavors. As the first black doctoral graduate of the Stanford University physics department in 1975, Giles and his colleagues put procedures in place to identify and recruit more minority doctoral candidates; by 1999, the Stanford physics department produced the largest number of black doctoral graduates in the country.
In 1992, Giles was named Boston University Scholar-Teacher of the Year and he became the deputy director of the Boston University Center for Computational Science. In 1996, Giles won the College of Engineering Award for Excellence in Teaching.
His research focuses on distributed and parallel computer and supercomputer applications, simulations of large-scale molecular systems, advanced computer architectures, computational science, and micromagnetics.
In 2000, Giles won the A. Nico Habermann Award from the Computing Research Association for “outstanding contributions aimed at increasing the numbers and/or successes of underrepresented groups in the computing research community.” The CRA awarded Giles efforts to increase the participation of underrepresented minorities in the computing disciplines, his service as a faculty advisor and mentor for the Minority Engineers Society, and his mentoring of high school, undergraduate, and graduate students.
Giles is a chairman and board member Associated Universities, Inc., a non-profit, research management corporation that builds and operates facilities for the research community whose major current operating unit is the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), which it operates under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. He is also chair of the recruitment committee within the BU Office of Diversity and Inclusion.
As a new AAAS Fellow, Giles joins the ranks of four other Boston University College of Engineering professors. Professor Xin Zhang (ME, MSE), Professor Emeritus Temple Smith (BME), Professor David Campbell (Physics, ECE, MSE) and Professor Joyce Wong (BME, MSE) have all been recognized for “their efforts toward advancing science applications that are deemed scientifically or socially distinguished.”
AAAS is the largest general scientific society in the world and publisher of the journal Science. The fellowship is a tradition that dates back to 1874 and is an honor awarded to members by a panel of their peers.