Sherita T. Ceasar is the Senior Vice President of Technology Environment and Strategy for Comcast Communications and has worked in the

telecommunications Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of ...

industry since 1988. She was the first African American president of the Society of Women Engineers, a position she held from 1999 to 2000.

Education

Sherita Ceasar grew up on the south side of

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

, attending a technical college preparatory school. She earned a Bachelor of Science in 1981 followed by a Masters of Science in 1984, both in

Mechanical Engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines and mechanism (engineering), mechanisms that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and engineering mathematics, mathematics principl ...

from the

Illinois Institute of Technology The Illinois Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Illinois Tech and IIT, is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Tracing its history to 1890, the present name was adopted upon the m ...

Chicago, Illinois Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

Career

Ceasar began her career in the defense department at

Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American multinational Aerospace manufacturer, aerospace and Arms industry, defense company. With 97,000 employees and an annual revenue in excess of $40 billion, it is one of the world's largest Arms industry ...

. She then moved to work at

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois. It was founded by brothers Paul and Joseph Galvin in 1928 and had been named Motorola since 1947. Many of Motorola's products had been ...

from 1988 to 1996, working in component design, manufacturing, quality, and building pagers. As Director of Manufacturing, Ceasar was the highest-ranking black female engineer at Motorola's Paging Products Group, which had over 10,000 associates globally. In 1996 she started at

Scientific-Atlanta Scientific Atlanta, Inc. was a Georgia, United States–based manufacturer of cable television, telecommunications, and broadband equipment. Scientific Atlanta was founded in 1951 by a group of engineers from the Georgia Institute of Technology, ...

as Vice President of Quality, where she was the highest ranking African American. Ceasar then worked as vice president and general manager of the

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

branch of

Charter Communications Charter Communications, Inc., is an American telecommunications and mass media company with services branded as Spectrum. The company is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut. With over 32 million customers in 41 states as of 2022, it is the ...

, before starting as Vice President of the product engineering, cross platform and engineering services of

Comcast Comcast Corporation, formerly known as Comcast Holdings,Before the AT&T Broadband, AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation, not th ...

in 2007. She became Vice President of National Video Deployment Engineering for Comcast in 2011, leading the development of services such as the X1 remote, cloud DVR, and building infrastructure of the cloud.

Awards

In 1994, Ceasar won the Black Engineer of the Year Special Recognition Award. In 1997, she won the Women of Color Technology Award, sponsored by Career Communications Group during Baltimore's Bicentennial Celebration. She also received the Society of Women Engineers' Distinguished New Engineer of the Year, and the Julia Beveridge Award for her support of the Illinois Institute of Technology. She was inducted into the Women in Technology Hall of Fame in 1999. She also served as president of the

Society of Women Engineers The Society of Women Engineers (SWE) is an international not-for-profit educational and service organization. Founded in 1950 and headquartered in the United States, the Society of Women Engineers is a major advocate for women in engineering and ...

from 1999 to 2000, becoming the first African American to hold the position. In 2003, Ceasar won a Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM) TAMI Award for launching master courses on advanced digital services. In 2014, she won the Women in Technology Award.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ceasar, Sherita American telecommunications engineers African-American women engineers 21st-century American women engineers 21st-century American engineers African-American engineers Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century African-American people 21st-century African-American women Presidents of the Society of Women Engineers