Spelman announces robotics, AI expert as college’s next president

Spelman College’s board of trustees has tapped Ayanna Howard, a dean of engineering at The Ohio State University, to serve as the school’s 12th president.

Howard attended Brown University as an undergraduate, then earned master’s and doctoral degrees in engineering from the University of Southern California. She also has an MBA from Claremont Graduate University.

An engineer by trade, Howard has worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and held several different positions at Georgia Tech. While there, she founded a trainee program in healthcare robotics and recruited college students outside of Georgia Tech to participate.

“Spelman students, Morehouse (College) students were the majority of the students that would come to my labs,” she said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Howard became the first outside funder of the SpelBots, Spelman’s award-winning robotics team. She also launched Zyrobotics, a company that develops assistive technology for people with disabilities.

Spelman College’s new president, Ayanna Howard, says although she has an extensive background in engineering, she was "more than just a geeky kid" growing up. (Natrice Miller for the AJC)

Growing up, Howard did well in school but also played sports, danced and acted. She chose Brown over Massachusetts Institute of Technology because it focused on the arts, she said.

“I was not just like the geeky kid that knew science,” she said. “I loved all these creative things.”

Although Spelman is one of the top producers of Black female science and engineering Ph.D.s in the country, it’s also a liberal arts school that values the humanities. Howard said her varied background makes her a good fit to lead the college.

“I don’t fit into anyone’s box … because I have all these lived experiences in these different spaces, it means that I have a wealth of stories, wealth of experiences, wealth of lessons learned, sometimes hard knocks that can be brought to bear on thinking through, ‘How do we actually address something where there is no rule book?’”

A big part of any college president’s job is to raise money. Spelman implemented an ambitious fundraising plan in April called “Spelman Forward,” which aims to raise $500 million, the majority of which will go toward student scholarships and financial aid. Howard said she plans to continue the initiative when she steps into the role.

Spelman College’s new president Ayanna Howard is currently a dean at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. (Natrice Miller for the AJC)

“The only way that we can ensure affordability is to fundraise, because (college) costs and this is the real cost of educating students with the legacy that we have here in Spelman … so fundraising advancement is the only way that we can cover that,” Howard said.

Howard knows leading one of the top-performing historically Black colleges in the country won’t be without its challenges. All colleges and universities are grappling with how to prepare students for a rapidly changing world, she said.

“So, thinking about that, what is it that we have to do?” she said. “We have to be nimble, we have to think about the legacy, because it’s a Spelman legacy … but we also have to think about, ‘How do you build on that legacy to address this rapidly changing world?’ That’s going to be a challenge, and there is no rule book.”

Lovette Russell, a graduate of Spelman’s class of 1983 and chair of the board of trustees, called Howard a “visionary leader.”

“Throughout this search process, we sought a leader who would honor Spelman’s legacy while boldly advancing our future, and Dr. Howard embodies that vision,” Russell said in a press release. “She understands the opportunities and challenges shaping higher education today and shares Spelman’s unwavering commitment to preparing Black women to lead and drive change.”