Bio

Oliver McGee III is a civil engineer, analyst, and Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Howard University. He was among the four inaugural MLK Visiting Professors at MIT. Research interests: computational mechanics, coupled finite element and boundary element methodologies, aerothermomechanics of aircraft engines, and interdisciplinary design optimization of civil and aerospace structural systems.

Prof. McGee holds an SB in Civil Engineering (1981) from Ohio State University (OSU). He went on to earn an MS in Civil Engineering (1983) and a PhD in Engineering Mechanics and Aerospace Engineering (1988) from the University of Arizona. In 2004, McGee earned an MBA in Business Administration and Finance from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

His first teaching position was at OSU as an assistant professor of civil engineering and engineering mechanics. He later became the first African-American full professor and chair of the Department of Civil Engineering & Geodetic Science in OSU’s 125-year history. In 1992, Prof. Mcgee became associate professor of civil and aerospace engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology, where he also served as special assistant to the President. Howard University hired him in 2007 as its first vice president for research and compliance.  The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching named him the 1995 Georgia Professor of the Year.

Prof. McGee s former United States deputy assistant secretary of transportation for technology policy (1999-2001) in the Clinton Administration. He founded Partnership Possibilities for America, a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm. The firm’s concepts on education, economics, and politics inspire Prof. McGee’s many books and publications. 

Numerous organizations have honored his work, including the American Council on Education (ACE), American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), National Science Foundation (NSF), and National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA).

In 1995, four years after the appointment of the first MLK Visiting Scholar, Henry McBay, McGee was appointed as an MLK Visiting Professor. He was one of four inaugural MLK Visiting Professors, including Wesley Harris (aeronautics and astronautics), Richard Joseph (political science), and Steven Lee (mathematics). During Prof. McGee’s three-year visit in MIT’s Department of Civil Engineering, he was appointed senior policy adviser in the Clinton White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Publications