By Chris Warren
This article highlights Dr. Josiah Hester’s journey and efforts to integrate computing with sustainability and cultural values, aiming to inspire systemic change towards a more sustainable and equitable future.
Long before Dr. Josiah Hester became a tenure track professor in Northwestern University’s Departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science, his parents taught him to understand the connection between computing and a secure life. “My parents saw that computing generally is your ticket,” says Dr. Hester, Native Hawaiian (Kānaka maoli), who remembers how his mom and dad started him learning the Java programing language.
It was a good fit for Dr. Hester because it meshed with his love of building real-world things, like tree forts and Lego constructions — Java just opened possibilities to create in the virtual world. But his parents saw it as a skill that was even more important. “This could lead to a good job so you’ll be secure,” says Dr. Hester, “which is really important because we came from insecurity.”
Indeed, Dr. Hester’s family story includes its share of deprivation and challenges. His grandmother grew up in Hawaii as the second-oldest child in a family of seven kids. “They were living in poverty, like so many Hawaiians at the time because of cultural and societal repression soon after statehood; it was difficult to get food,” says Dr. Hester. “She felt responsible for all the kids and said she needed to find a new life.” His grandmother stepped into that new life when she married a sailor after his stint at Pearl Harbor, then moved to North Carolina, where he was from.”
North Carolina was where Dr. Hester’s mom was born and, ultimately, began to raise her own family, including Josiah. Eventually, Dr. Hester’s parents moved the family back to Hawaii, where he graduated from Hawaii Baptist Academy before returning to the East Coast to earn a BS and PhD in computer science at Clemson University.
The post Dr. Josiah Hester | Most Promising Engineer or Scientist Awardee | Native Hawaiian appeared first on Winds of Change.
