Alumni Spotlight: Shason Briscoe

This spotlight is part of our 2022 Black Futures Month feature.

Growing up in Houston, Shason Briscoe ’19, computer engineering, always had an affinity for the tech field. He watched the annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conferences and tech-related YouTube videos in high school. He even toured several startup headquarters in and around the Bay area during a trip with his parents to San Francisco.

When he came to UC Davis, Shason served as president and treasurer of the Black Engineers Association and founded the State of Diversity in Engineering Summit. Through both clubs, Shason regularly reached out to recruiters and established partnerships with Google, Twitter and other big-name tech companies to increase diversity in new tech hires. This outreach paid off with the professional success of his peers and an internship and career for Shason. He connected with SurveyMonkey (now Momentive.ai), interviewed once, got an internship, and was hired as a software engineer. Like in high school, Shason remains motivated by the rapid-moving nature and ongoing changes in tech. And like college, he has established a community of like-minded engineers, having joined the Black in Technology (BIT) employee resource group at Momentive.ai.

Shason takes advantage of his company’s unlimited time-off policy and used 32 days of vacation last year to travel, practice photography and relax to prevent burnout.

“It is extremely important to look back at our history to inform our future,” Shason explains about the importance of Black Futures Month. “At Google, the first person to work there from a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) was in 2015, a lot later than people realize. Black inventors, athletes, celebrities, activists are helping shape how we want to move forward, so we can make an impact like they did.”