Jacqueline Akinpelu

Jacqueline M. Akinpelu (born 1953,[1] née McKinney) is an American applied mathematician and operations researcher who worked at Bell Labs on network performance under overloaded conditions, and later, as a research manager at the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University, developed a pipeline for students from Morgan State University to mentor them into careers in STEM fields.[2]

Early life and education

Akinpelu is African-American, and originally from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she was raised by a poor single mother in the 1960s. She was educated in the public school system there, and majored in mathematics at Duke University, graduating magna cum laude in 1975.[2]

She completed her doctorate in 1980, from the Johns Hopkins University Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, with the dissertation Optimal Multi-Product Scheduling on One Machine Over a Finite Horizon supervised by Eliezer Naddor.[3][4] Her doctoral research related to inventory management in operations research.[2]

Career and later life

Akinpelu became a researcher at Bell Labs in 1980, and continued to work there and its successor, AT&T Labs, for 25 years. Her early work there involved network performance under overloaded conditions,[2][5] and signaling protocols in voice networks. Her later work at Bell was as a manager for the planning and maintenance of AT&T's long distance telephone network,[2] as head of the Network Capacity Operation Systems Planning Department.[6] She was also influential in recruiting members of disadvantaged groups to AT&T,[1] and was an advocate for considering the different needs and characteristics of different ethnic and national groups rather than lumping them all together.[6]

In 2006, she moved to the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, starting as a performance engineer and assistant group supervisor,[7] and later becoming an assistant branch supervisor. There, she built an outreach and mentoring program with Morgan State University, connecting students there to STEM careers,[2] before eventually retiring.[8]

Recognition

In 2009, she was honored in Women of Color magazine as a recipient of the 2009 Women of Color Technology Award for Career Achievement in Government.[7][1]

Johns Hopkins University gave her their 2011 Diversity Award,[9] and the Johns Hopkins Alumni Association gave her their 2017 Heritage Award.[10]

References

  1. ^ a b c "Jacqueline Akinpelu (b. 1953)" (PDF), EvenQuads project, Association for Women in Mathematics, August 2023, retrieved 2025-06-19
  2. ^ a b c d e f "Jacqueline Akinpelu", Black History Month 2019 Honorees, Mathematically Gifted & Black, February 5, 2019, retrieved 2025-06-19
  3. ^ Jacqueline Akinpelu at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  4. ^ "Dissertations", Johns Hopkins Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering, retrieved 2025-06-19
  5. ^ Akinpelu, J. M. (September 1984), "The overload performance of engineered networks with nonhierarchical and hierarchical routing", Bell Laboratories Technical Journal, 63 (7): 1261–1281, doi:10.1002/j.1538-7305.1984.tb00036.x
  6. ^ a b "Chapter 2: Barriers for Women in Corporate Culture", Women Scientists and Engineers Employed in Industry: Why So Few?, Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 1994, pp. 40–41, doi:10.17226/2264, ISBN 978-0-309-04991-7
  7. ^ a b "Congratulations to Dr. Jacqueline Akinpelu", Women of Color, p. 16, Fall 2009, retrieved 2025-06-19
  8. ^ Mountie Math Role Models, Mt. San Antonio College, retrieved 2025-06-19
  9. ^ "2011 Diversity Awards", Diversity at JHU, Johns Hopkins University, retrieved 2025-06-19
  10. ^ Heritage Award 2017, Johns Hopkins Alumni Association, retrieved 2025-06-19
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