Service | Hbcu Research And Federal Government

Career

After graduating from Howard in 1973, Shepard started his career with the Celanese Corporation in Charlotte, North Carolina. Two weeks in his position as Head of the X-ray Diffraction and Atomic Absorption laboratory, his laboratory was inspected by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS)'s Radition Protection Section. He was not aware of the scattered radiation that his technicians were being exposed to on a daily basis. Due to the severity of the radiation levels, his laboratory was deemed out of compliance with the state radiation requirements and the federal mandates governed by the Occupation Health and Safety Administration (OSHA). He was given 60 days to bring his laboratory into compliance with both the state and federal radiation protection requirements. With no time to waste wondering if the laboratory was known to be contaminated prior to his arrival, he moved expeditiously to resolve the issue in a cost-effective manner before the 60-day deadline.

The newly formed U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was established in 1974. In 1975, Shepard was invited to take an interview, was hired in the Office of Nuclear Materials Safety & Safeguards (NMSS), promoted to the Office of Nuclear Research (ONR) in 1977, and continued to move up. After becoming a program manager in the Nuclear Safeguards group, he became a peer reviewer for NRC and for other federal agencies that were engaged in university research collaborations. In his reviewer capacity, he noticed the absence of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) as participants in this well-funded, federal-university research partnership, and provided definitive data showing the role some HBCUs could play in conducting high-quality research for the federal government.

In 1984, Shepard requested, and was granted, the opportunity under the government's Intergovernmental Personnel Assistant (IPA) Program, to join Howard's Chemistry Department as a Visiting Scientist to create and test a conceptual framework for improving the research infrastructure at HBCUs using partnerships and collaborations. While at Howard, he was awarded a grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to establish a collaboration with Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) in Nigeria. He created a new focus in the department by conducting research on looking at unknown plants as potential food sources, and successfully demonstrated that not only could HBCU research infrastructures be strengthened through collaborations with each other, but also from global interactions.

In 1988, he returned to the NRC and became known as the "Scientist Dedicated to HBCU Advancement in Federal Research," and played a critical role in launching a government-university partnership that strengthened underrepresented and underutilized institutions in science and engineering fields.

In 1990, Shepard resigned from the NRC and founded the Science and Engineering Alliance, Inc. (known as SEA), a nonprofit research consortium of four HBCUs, Alabama A&M University (Huntsville, AL); Jackson State University (Jackson, MS); Prairie View A&M University (Prairie View, TX); Southern University and A&M College (Baton Rouge, LA); and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Livermore, CA), with the goal of broadening participation to increase the use of HBCUs in federally funded research.

Based on his advocacy on behalf of HBCUs, in 1993 he was asked by the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemist and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE) to share his thoughts on the future of HBCUs. His article was the cover story for the April 1993 issue of NOBCChE News.

Over its 24-year span under Shepard's leadership, according to the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s Survey of Federal Science and Engineering Support to Universities, Colleges, and Nonprofit Institutions for the years 1990 - 2009, the SEA institutions collectively secured over $1 billion in federal funds to support new initiatives, among which was enhancement of the research infrastructure.

After leading SEA for nearly a quarter of a century and the organization exceeding its mission, in 2013 Shepard and the Board of Directors dissolved SEA. In that same year, he established The Shepard Institute (TSI), LLC to continue his advocacy for HBCUs and his writing.

The work and legacy of SEA were continued and expanded upon in 2020 by its successor organization, the National Science & Engineering Alliance (NSEA).

A final note on Shepard's career. In 2019, 40 years after the collaboration he started with OAU in 1988, Dr. Michael O. Ologunde, the student from OAU who studied in Shepard's laboratory at Howard, became the first Indigenous President of the university in Nigeria in which he served.