The Gem Pipeline:40 years of diversifying success

For 40 years, the National GEM Consortium has been linking exceptional talent to extraordinary careers.

- Lango Deen ldeen

The National Consortium for Graduate Degrees for Minorities in Engineering and Sciences (GEM) has helped thousands of students from historically underrepresented groups in the engineering, physical science, and life science disciplines overcome one of the most pervasive barriers to pursuing an advanced degree: identifying and securing funding for graduate education.

This is the story of one of the 3,000 men and women who have achieved masters and doctorates in the physical sciences, life sciences, and engineering in GEM’s best-in-class graduate fellowship program.

Gerard “Gerry” Lopez was still in kindergarten in the San Fernando Valley, CA, when General Electric’s J. Stanford Smith put out a call to action in 1972.

Smith wanted a tenfold increase in minority engineering graduates within 10 years.

In response, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) sponsored a symposium on increasing participation of minorities and women in engineering.

Two years later, the University of Notre Dame hosted a meeting of representatives from research centers, universities, and advocacy organizations to develop methods to increase representation and make sure everyone gets a chance.

Lopez attended California State University at North ridge and earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 1988.

After that, he landed a great job at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is the leading center for robotic exploration of the solar system.

At the time, the JPL had a program where if you were working as an engineer, you could go to the University of Southern California and get a graduate degree at no cost. So Lopez took advantage of his workplace benefits and earned his master’s in electrical engineering in 1990.