With the aging of Baby Boombers, which represent 76 million people in United States or 1/4 of the overall population in this country, it creates wide-ranging implications for virtually every facet of American society. On par with the aging baby boomers is the growing minority population. Today in many places including the densely populated states of California and Texas, non-Hispanic whites have already been in the minority, and the bulk of minority students including Hispanics are further concentrated in the younger grades. As many minority students value education and perform very well academically and socially, many other families do not have access to information about the educational system in a way that helps support their children to be successful in the U.S. school system. The gap is further widen among economically disadvantaged students. Today, completing a higher education not only means the enhancement of social status, but also means a better financial capability in the computerized society. When an economic underclass becomes the majority, the class division between the embarrassingly wealthy and the unacceptably poor not only caused alienation, resentment, and social unrest, but also will affect the sustainability of economical prosperity. Considering the rapid minority population growth and minority-majority flip tendency, the significance of young minorities for the growth and vitality of our labor force and economy need to be particularly recognized.
Yongpeng Zhang received his BS from Xi'an University of Technology in 1994, MS degree from Tianjin University in 1999, and PhD degree from University of Houston in 2003, all in Electrical Engineering. From 2004 - 2018, he worked as Assistant Professor and then Associate Professor at Prairie View A&M University, Texas. From 2018 Fall, he worked as Associate Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Lawrence Tech University, Michigan. His teaching and research interests include power system, control system, mechatronics, etc. As the Principal Investigator, his research has received significant sponsorship from Army Research Office, NSF, ED, and industry.
Xiaobo Peng is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Prairie View A&M University. He received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Missouri University of Science and Technology in 2005. His research interests include CAD/CAM, additive manufacturing, virtual prototyping, and engineering education. Dr. Peng is the member of ASME and ASEE.
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