Gift Supplements Reliability Fellowship

Willie Webb (1944-2007)

A bequest of $250,000 by Willie Webb will augment the Miss Willie M. Webb Reliability Engineering Fellowship to assist and encourage graduate students, women and minorities in the area of reliability engineering.

“Willie Webb's generous contribution will allow the Reliability Engineering Program to attract excellent students and offer the deserving ones fellowships,” said Prof. Mohammad Modarres, program director. “The gift will clearly enhance scholarship and student diversity in the Clark School for very long time to come.”

Webb passed away in April after a long illness. She started in the reliability engineering program as a student in 1991, and later worked as a technical assistant in the program for 15 years, supporting professors Mohammad Modarres and Ali Mosleh. She worked to advance distance delivery of reliability engineering education and coauthored a two-volume book, Applied Reliability Engineering, with Professor Marvin Roush. This book has been used by various universities, people and organizations, and as the textbook for two senior-level reliability engineering courses at the University of Maryland.

To honor her accomplishments and contributions to the field of reliability engineering, the reliability engineering program has named its library the Willie Webb Reliability Engineering Library.

To learn more about the Great Expectations campaign and how you can make a difference in the Clark School’s progress, please contact us.

Published July 18, 2007