A. Michael West, Jr., a postdoctoral researcher affiliated with the Malone Center, was inducted into the Edward A. Bouchet Graduate Honor Society during a ceremony on May 6.
The Bouchet Society is a network of higher education scholars who exemplify academic and personal excellence, foster environments of support, and serve as examples of scholarship, leadership, character, service, and advocacy for students and trainees in the academy. It is named after Edward Alexander Bouchet, the first African American doctoral recipient in the United States.
The society was originally co-founded by Yale University and Howard University in 2005. This year marks the society’s 20th anniversary; it currently has chapters at 19 American universities.
West is a postdoctoral fellow in mechanical engineering at the Whiting School of Engineering. His research, rooted in control theory, advances robotic technologies—including rehabilitation robotics, collaborative robots, prosthetics, and dexterous robots—through the investigation of human motor control, learning, and perception. He has served as postdoctoral chair for the Mechanical Engineering Department Belonging Committee and co-founded Math Up, a tutoring initiative designed to strengthen early STEM preparation for students. West has been the recipient of the JHU Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellowship, the Shirley Anne Jackson Award, the Accenture Fellowship, the GEM Fellowship, and the Takeda Fellowship. He has been hired to join the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech as an assistant professor starting in August 2027.