Kareem Muhammad, engineering core senior manager in the Seat & In-Flight Entertainment Connectivity Integration Team at Boeing Commercial Airplanes, has been named the 2018 Golden Torch Award Distinguished Engineer of the Year by the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE). Muhammad earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2001, and currently serves as president of the Rensselaer Alumni Association.
NSBE is the premier organization serving African-Americans in engineering and technology. The Golden Torch Awards recognize excellence among technical professionals, corporate, government, and academic leaders, and university and pre-college students.
“Each year, the Golden Torch Awards honor individuals, companies, and institutions that have produced a consistent body of highly distinguished work, served as role models for others, and advanced opportunities for African-Americans within the industry,” wrote the NSBE Programs Team in its congratulatory letter to Muhammad. “We recognize accomplishments that have enriched both engineers and the world with intelligence, talent, and vision.”
The Distinguished Engineer of the Year award is NSBE’s most prestigious award. It is based on a career of outstanding achievements in an engineering or technical field and exceptional leadership, and recognizes individuals who have significantly expanded their industry and have been active in the community and in activities supporting NSBE’s mission.
“Kareem, as an engineering core senior manager with Boeing Commercial Airplanes, has a truly distinguished technical career and his contributions to the broader community are characterized with the same outstanding people and communication skills that have set him apart as a leader in technology,” wrote one of Muhammad’s nominators for the award.
Muhammad joined Boeing in 2003 as a thermal systems engineer in the Space and Intelligence Systems (S&IS) Satellite Development Center. After completing the Boeing Company’s two-year leadership development Enterprise Auditor Program, he joined the Commercial Airplanes division in 2012. He has earned master’s degrees at Georgia Tech, in mechanical engineering with a focus on heat transfer and thermodynamics, and at the University of Southern California, in systems architecture and engineering.
Muhammad’s previous honors include the 2009 S&IS World-Class Engineering Award, the 2010 Black Engineer of the Year Award (BEYA) for Most Promising Engineer or Scientist–Industry category, and the 2011 Rensselaer Alumni Association Alumni Key Award for outstanding service supporting the advancement of Rensselaer.
Muhammad will receive his award at the 21st Annual Golden Torch Awards (GTA), which will take place during the 44th NSBE Annual Convention, on March 24 at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The success of graduates like Kareem Muhammad exemplifies The New Polytechnic, a new paradigm for teaching, learning, and research at Rensselaer that uses advanced technologies to enable fresh collaborations across disciplines, sectors, and regions, in order to answer the global challenges of our day. The New Polytechnic is transformative in the global impact of research, in its innovative pedagogy, and in the lives of students at Rensselaer.