PVAMU Alumna Nathelyne Kennedy Named Houston Engineer of the Year

Last Updated on May 27, 2023

Prairie View A&M University congratulates Nathelyne Archie Kennedy, P.E. on being named the 2016 Houston Engineer of the Year. Nathelyne Archie Kennedy founded her own engineering consultancy in 1981, and has since built Nathelyne A. Kennedy & Associates into a highly respected company providing civil engineering and program management services for highway, mass transit, street, bridge, aviation, port, water and wastewater, educational campus, and sports complex projects.

A Conroe native, she was Prairie View A&M University’s first female engineering graduate. After beginning her career in Chicago, she returned to Houston and in 1979 became the first African-American woman to attain a professional engineering license in the State of Texas. She was one of three African American women engineers profiled in a 1984 Ebony article, “Engineering Their Way to the Top.”

Ms. Kennedy shares her entrepreneurship experience by mentoring women, minorities and students. She also endowed a scholarship for architecture and engineering students at Prairie View A&M University. In 2006, she was honored by her alma mater naming their new Architecture building and History and Culture center the Nathelyne Archie Kennedy Building. The Houston Chapter of WTS International celebrated the 35th anniversary of Ms. Kennedy attaining her professional engineering license by conferring on her in 2014 their inaugural Trailblazer Award.

Source: Prairie View A&M University