By Dianne Anderson

Technologically speaking, math and other sciences are barreling toward making the wonders of almost anything on the big screen now appear within the realm of possibility – if only students can do the math.

From his purview, Dr. Kagba Suaray of the Hesabu Circle sees how popular culture is spurring interest toward cutting-edge fields that used to be the stuff of science fiction. It’s what rockets, wormholes and time travel are made of.

Math is the backbone of everything old and new, but for kids today, math is not their grandparents’ math. It would take reams and trees of paper to work out the mind-boggling equations longhand.

“That’s where math is headed now in a big way,” Dr. Suaray said. “So much data is coming in you need supercomputers to execute a lot of the mathematics. It’s the wave of the future. You have to have your math degree in one hand and the ability to code in the other.”

Black students are getting on board where science and STEM are headed, but it’s a work in progress. For kids that understand, the excitement is clear. There is something about futurism that evokes natural curiosity.

Some students see the connection and run with it.

“Whether it’s through hip hop, or through space or through looking at patterns in our hair and the clothes we wear, fractal design and mathematics are in our culture. For different people, different things light that fuse,” said Dr. Suaray, professor at CSULB department of Mathematics and Statistics.

Students fortunate enough to have parents that guided them along the path don’t have the same kind of struggle. They find their niche and they’re ready to go.

But he is concerned about reaching others. Too many Black students, due to generations of oppression and substandard education, are missing out. He feels that educators must make sure the most marginalized can realize their untapped potential.

Through his program, the Hesabu Circle, he sees strength in numbers, and a collective power.

Recently, in hearing about plans of the new Relativity Space program headquarters, he hopes to connect and find out how they are reaching Black engineers as they bring 2,000 jobs locally.

Dr. Suaray was a McNair scholar named after Black astronaut and physicist Ronald McNair, who died in the 1986 Challenger explosion. He said the McNair program was instrumental in helping him with his Ph.D. He continues to search for opportunities to sponsor other Black students.

“It has prepared me. Now full circle I’m a mentor in the McNair Scholar program and I have students,” he said.

With Hesabu Circle’s recent funding, their summer program is reaching students with math, culture and community connections to the real world. Older students serve as academic mentors to the younger students, one of the mentors is continuing at Compton College and another is entering Cal Poly Pomona. He said both are involved in building a rocket and learning the physics behind it.

Later this month, Hesabu Circle students will visit the STEM club and rocket at Compton College.

“They’re going to enter a competition to see if they can reach a metric, how high and how fast the rocket can go, and are competing against other schools. There’s definitely a lot of interest with Black students and students of color with Virgin and SpaceX doing their thing,” he said.

Recently, Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia commended Relativity Space plans for the new 1-million square-foot headquarters that will bring 2,000 good-paying jobs.

“The future of our economy is about technology. It is about satellites; it is about rockets, and it is about space. Long Beach is at the center of all of that innovation and we are the largest hub on the West Coast for this work. I could not be more proud of the work that is happening here,” the Mayor stated.

Dr. Jinny Rhee, Dean of the CSULB College of Engineering, is also interested in learning more about opportunities for diversity and the potential for new 3-D rocket applications of Relativity Space.

“We are definitely in the business of nurturing and developing talent. There are obviously many people who are perfectly capable of being in our field, who have been historically under-served by engineering education. That’s one of our goals,” she said.

Students of color haven’t entered the field as they should. The gap can be bridged, she said, but it requires more foundational work and mentoring. The department provides scholarships and workshops, especially for students from a lower-income backgrounds.

Her specialty is heat and power systems, and for most fields, starting salaries for engineers usually run about $80-100,000.

While working her way through her program, she recalls only a small minority of Black Students.

Today, CSULB only has about 2.6% of Black engineering students, and about 40% Hispanic.

“I think that there’s maybe a perception that students [of color] sometimes aren’t as well prepared. Perhaps they just go to a high school that doesn’t have a full range of AP courses that other high schools might have. It doesn’t mean that they aren’t capable,” she said.

To learn more, or get involved with Hesabu Circle, see email hesabu.circle@gmail.com

For more about CSULB Engineering scholarships, tutoring and engineering, see
https://www.csulb.edu/college-of-engineering/besst