ECE Names 2022 Distinguished Alumni
April 28, 2022
From left to right: Bert Nail, Everette T. Beers, Jeannette Herring Russ, ECE Department Head Samee U. Khan, and Eric B. Welch. Not pictured: Anthony L. Wilson.
Five Mississippi State alumni have been chosen as Electrical and Computer Engineering Distinguished Alumni for 2022.
The honorees were recently presented their awards at a lunch with faculty and the Electrical and Computer Engineering Advisory Board. This is the second year the electrical & computer engineering department has recognized a group of Distinguished Alumni.
“The ECE Distinguished Alumni Award was created in 2021 to recognize the outstanding contributions of our graduates to the field and the service rendered to their constituents,” said Samee Khan, electrical and computer engineering department head. “This year’s selectees distinguish themselves in putting service before self. The recipients are role models for all of us, especially the students of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering”.
Each of the awardees will receive a medallion and their names will be permanently displayed in Simrall Hall.
The five alumni selected as 2022 Electrical and Computer Engineering Distinguished Alumni include:
Everette T. Beers
Beers served as a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army performing neurophysiological research and was selected to be the first U.S. Army Research Exchange Officer to the United Kingdom. When Beers retired from the Army in 1993, he joined the Food and Drug Administration in the Division of Ophthalmic Devices.
James Bert Nail
Nail worked for Boeing in their Flight Dynamics and Control section before coming back to Mississippi State for teaching and research. He is currently working in the Idea Shop with a startup LLC developing tools to combat honeybee pests.
Jeannette Lynn Russ
Russ serves as a professor and Department Chair in the Union University Department of Engineering. She joined Union University in 2002 and was instrumental in establishing their engineering program. Russ was named “Faculty of the Year” in 2008 and became Department Chair in 2012.
Eric Burns Welch
Welch has been a professor and Chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Christian Brothers University in Memphis, Tennessee for thirty years. Welch has worked in university administration in various capacities over the past twenty years.
Anthony Lee Wilson
Wilson is Chairman and CEO of Mississippi Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company. Wilson currently serves as the chair of the Mississippi State University Foundation and is on the Bagley College of Engineering Dean’s Advisory Council. He also serves as chair for the Mississippi Partnership for Economic Development as well as executive director of the Mississippi Energy Institute Board.