Organized by Richard Tapia, CRPC Director of Human Resources and Education, the meeting was held with the goal of developing an effective plan that universities, industry, government and funding agencies will embrace and implement. "I was pleased that we had such a wide range of influential individuals attending," says Tapia. "I am excited about the opportunity this affords us to set a course for the nation on this important topic."

Rice University President Malcolm Gillis welcomed the group and reaffirmed the importance of diversity in higher education. Shirley Malcomb, director of Education and Human Resources Programs at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), presented the keynote address in which she discussed "The Challenge" of increasing minority leadership in science and engineering. Tapia gave a talk on "Lack of Minority Leadership: Possible Causes and Plausible Solutions. " Attendees then broke into large and small groups to identify and discuss key issues in the solution-finding process, compile a list of suggestions, and brainstorm strategies to ensure that the suggestions would be implemented. The organizers will issue a report outlining the specific recommendations that came from the conference.

In addition to the NSF, conference sponsors included the CRPC; Rice University's Diversity Graduate Program in Science and Engineering; the Education, Outreach, and Training Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (EOT-PACI); and the Center for Excellence and Equity in Education.

Left to right: Judith Sunley, Interim Assistant Director, NSF; Malcolm Gillis, President, Rice University; and William Wulf, President, National Academy of Engineering.

Richard Tapia, CRPC Director of Education and Human Resources and Noah Harding Professor of Computational and Applied Mathematics, Rice University.

Terry Millar, Associate Dean and Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

For more information, see www.crpc.rice.edu/CRPC/LEADCON