Escape Velocity

The 30+ year journey of a Black engineer in K-12 education – featuring Dr. Darin Gray

Dr. Brandi Jones, vice dean for diversity and strategic initiatives at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, speaks about her life's work, the people who have shaped her and those whose lives she has shaped — as well as her experiences leading equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives at some of the nation’s top engineering schools.

Episode 3 "The Black Engineering Student Experience" by USC Viterbi School of Engineering

An intimate conversation at the intersection of race, STEM and academia with two legendary Black leaders: Dr. Wanda Austin, retired CEO of Aerospace Corporation and former President of USC, and Dr. John Brooks Slaughter, former director of the National Science Foundation, former President of Occidental College and Chancellor of the University of Maryland.

Dr. Timothy Pinkston and Dr. Stacey Finley, two pastor's kids who became leading figures in STEM, talk about the burdens of being first and how their experiences in academia have been shaped by being #BlackInTheIvory.

Every day, we do thousands of movements that we take for granted. But what if our bodies were a prison? Who would unlock it for us? At four months old, following a severe brain injury, Ralph Hernandez was condemned to be a prisoner of his own body. Then, he met Dr. Terry Sanger.

Based on the contemporary research of USC Viterbi professor Burcin Becerik-Gerber, KATE 2600 transports us to New Amsterdam — a futuristic city where buildings are not inanimate but sentient beings, uniquely programmed to suit the physical needs of their residents. Adam Bard, a successful finance executive and aspiring author is looking for such a home. Kate 2600 becomes not only his home but his primary emotional companion. Their relationship is soon threatened by the limitations of human mortality and technical fallibility.

Musician and composer Wil Brumbach, goes on a search for love enlisting the help of some powerful matchmakers - engineers. He tests the hypothesis of a love formula through highly scientific means - by putting himself “out there” and consulting with data scientists at eHarmony and USC's Information Sciences Institute. Responsible for nearly 5% of marriages in America, these engineers at eHarmony are on a quest to manufacture the ultimate love algorithm that can predict happy long-lasting relationships. Can they help Wil find his happily ever after?

Machine learning expert Greg Ver Steeg and computational biologist Shirley Pepke search for a way to personalize ovarian cancer treatment. For Pepke, the answers can’t come fast enough.

On July 20, 1969, from behind the Iron Curtain in communist Romania, ten-year-old Bogdan Marcu watched Neil Armstrong take the first step on the moon. That moment unleashed a space dream and a chain of events that included a gutsy escape plan, a revolution, a USC graduate application funded by selling cotton socks on the streets of Budapest, a miners' revolt and saving the life of a total stranger who would forever seal his fate.