21/08/2026
𝗪𝗘𝗟𝗖𝗢𝗠𝗘 𝗧𝗢 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗦𝗜𝗨 𝗕𝗢𝗔𝗥𝗗 𝗢𝗙 𝗢𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗘𝗘𝗥𝗦 - 𝗥𝗔𝗬 𝗚𝗜𝗟𝗦𝗧𝗥𝗔𝗣😊
Seven International University is proud to welcome Ray Gilstrap to its Board of Overseers as Vice President, Advanced Engineering, Critical Infrastructure & Autonomous Systems.
Ray brings 35 years of engineering and technology leadership, including 27 years at NASA Ames Research Center, working at the intersection of mission-critical infrastructure, advanced supercomputing, global Internet systems, cybersecurity and advanced communications.
His remarkable journey at NASA has included leadership responsibilities as Senior Network Manager, leadership within the NASA Advanced Supercomputing environment, Technical Lead for the E-Root Domain Name Server, and contributions to secure infrastructure supporting NASA Security Operations Center capabilities.🌟
But beyond the technology, there is something particularly important to us at SIU: Ray is a builder of people.
A recipient of the NASA Ames Honor Award for Excellence in Mentoring and the Black Engineer of the Year Award - Modern-Day Technology Leader, he has spent part of his remarkable career mentoring and developing the next generation of engineers and technology leaders.
And this is precisely where his journey meets ours.
At SIU, Ray will help us strengthen a culture of engineering excellence, systems thinking and mission-critical problem solving. He will engage with our students, challenge their projects, mentor emerging engineers and help us develop ambitious initiatives around advanced engineering, critical infrastructure and autonomous systems.
Our ambition is not simply to teach students how technology works.
We want them to learn how complex systems are designed, how they fail, how they are secured, and how engineers build them to perform when failure is not an option.
Having someone who has spent decades working in such environments now helping shape that mindset in our students is incredibly meaningful to us.
Welcome to SIU, Ray. Welcome to the family of Doers.💚🧡
WE, THE DOERS.🚀
