MLK Regional Celebration

Saginaw Valley State University has partnered with regional businesses, chambers of commerce and community foundations to work together to host a celebration of the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. The sixth annual Great Lakes Bay Regional event will feature a peace march, keynote speaker and scholarship award ceremony.

2020 Event:

Wednesday, January 22, 2020  •  7 p.m.
Malcolm Field Theatre for Performing Arts
Curtiss Hall, SVSU

Keynote Speaker

Ruth D. Jones, Ph.D.
Acting Deputy Director, Michoud Assembly Facility, New Orleans

Ruth D. Jones serves as acting deputy director at NASA-owned Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, where she leads the day-to-day management of the multi-tenant manufacturing facility. There, NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion spacecraft are being built.

Jones is a trailblazer. She became the first woman to receive a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff in 1994. Six years later, she was the second African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in physics in the state of Alabama when she graduated from Alabama A&M University. In her career, Jones thrived in an industry where professionals rarely looked like her. Many of her peers are male. And most are white.

Lauded as one of NASA’s Modern Figures, Jones travels the nation as a motivational speaker in hopes of inspiring youths to seek careers in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. She also wants to serve as a role model for other women and minorities.

“No matter what your color is, no matter what your gender is, what matters is what’s in your head,” she said in a 2017 interview. “For the ones who made it out and have good jobs, we need to go back to those communities and serve as role models to show those students that STEM is the way to go.”

During her career, she received awards including the Center Director’s Commendation honor from Marshall Space Flight Center and Glenn Research Center as well as the Extraordinary Achievements in Aerospace Engineering award presented by Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.

Jones provides scholarships to students active in her home church, First Baptist Church, in West Helena, Arkansas. She also hosts a “Science Day” at the schools she attended before college.