#WhyNotMeSTEM conference

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Meet our Keynote Speakers

Dr. Rebecca S. Bigler is Emeritx Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. Ze attended high school in St. Cloud, Minnesota before receiving a B.A. from Oberlin College and Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University in 1991. Ze studies the causes and consequences of social stereotyping and prejudice among children, with a particular focus on gender and racial attitudes. Ze has also worked to develop and test intervention strategies aimed at reducing children's social stereotyping and intergroup bias. Hir most recent work concerns the sexualization of girls and women and the development of political attitudes during childhood. Ze is a supporter of gender neutral language.

 

Dr. Megan E. Vinh  is a senior technical assistance specialist and member of the leadership team for the Trohanis Technical Assistance (TA) Projects at Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Vinh currently serves as the PI of the STEM Innovation for Inclusion in Early Education (STEMIE) Center, and the Co-PI of the Early Childhood Technical Assistance (ECTA) Center. She provides leadership, technical assistance, and evaluation support around improving state early intervention and early childhood special education service systems, increasing the implementation of effective practices, and enhancing outcomes of these programs for young children and their families. She also works to ensure young children with disabilities participate in and benefit from high-quality STEM teaching and learning. She specializes in program evaluation and systems change around access and equity issues, including reducing early care and education suspensions and expulsions and increasing high-quality inclusive opportunities. She also served on the Division for Early Childhood (DEC) Executive Board within the presidential line. 

 

Dr. Chayla Haynes Davison is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education Administration and past recipient of Texas A&M University's Robert and Mavis Simmons Faculty Fellowship. She earned a Ph.D. in Higher Education from the University of Denver and also holds a M.A. in College Student Personnel from Bowling Green State University. Her research centers on critical and inclusive pedagogy with emphasis on college teaching and faculty development, Black women in higher education and critical race theory and intersectionality scholarship and methodologies. She is co-editor of Interrogating Whiteness and Relinquishing Power: White Faculty's Commitment to Racial Consciousness in STEM Classrooms (Peter Lang) and Race Equity and the Learning Environment: The Global Relevance of Critical and Inclusive Pedagogies in Higher Education (Stylus). Her scholarship also appears in the Review of Educational Research, Educational Researcher, the Journal of Higher Education, Teachers College Record, the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education and the Journal of Negro Education. She is the junior scholar recipient of the Association for the Study of Higher Education's (ASHE) Council for Ethnic Participation's Mildred Garcia Award for Exemplary Scholarship. Additionally, the Comparative & International Education Society's African Diaspora Special Interest Group (CIES ADSIG), an affiliate of the World Education Research Association (WERA), named Dr. Haynes Davison a 2020 Emerging Scholar. She is on the editorial board for the Journal of Education and Development in the Caribbean of the University of the West Indies. And prior to the professoriate, Dr. Haynes Davison served the higher education and student affairs profession for 15 years, as a former Director of Orientation and Family Programs and Services, Director of Student Affairs and Career Services, and Director of Student Activities.

 

Dr. Bryce E. Hughes is an assistant professor in education at Montana State University. He earned his Ph.D. in education from UCLA, his M.A. in student development administration from Seattle University, and his B.S. in general engineering from Gonzaga University. His research interests encompass diversity and equity in higher education, focusing on STEM education and LGBTQ issues. After finding that LGBQ students are 7% less likely to persist in a STEM major, he was awarded an NSF CAREER grant to study the participation of LGBTQ students in STEM, analyzing students' social networks, comparing STEM degree completion rates, and exploring the intersection of LGBTQ and STEM identities. In his other research, Dr. Hughes has studied LGBTQ grassroots leadership at a Catholic university, leadership development in engineering students, science communication in STEM graduate students, and the use of Minecraft to improve middle grades students' spatial reasoning skills.

 

Dr. Adriana Umaña-Taylor, Ph.D. is the Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot Professor of Education in the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her work seeks to apply developmental science in a manner that reduces ethnic-racial disparities in psychological and academic adjustment and, in turn, promotes social justice. Dr. Umaña-Taylor has successfully collaborated with school districts for over 20 years to design and implement large-scale, longitudinal, school-based data collection efforts with high school students. She is Principal Investigator of multiple, longitudinal research projects funded by the National Science Foundation, the Institute of Education Sciences, the National Institutes of Health, the William T. Grant Foundation, and the Spencer Foundation. She developed the Identity Project, a school-based intervention curriculum that engages adolescents in the developmental processes of ethnic-racial identity exploration and resolution. Her recent studies focus on testing the efficacy and effectiveness of the Identity Project; developing professional development programming to prepare educators to implement the Identity Project with their students; understanding how adolescents develop their ethnic and racial identities in the context of their peer relationships within the school setting; testing how the negative physiological effects of race-based stress can be reduced by intervening in adolescents' ethnic-racial identity development; and exploring the universal nature of ethnic-racial identity development as a promotive factor for adolescents in Latin American and European countries. She has published over 200 peer-reviewed journal articles and handbook chapters, and her books include Below the Surface: Talking with Teens about Race, Ethnicity, and Identity (with Rivas-Drake; Princeton University Press, 2019); Studying Ethnic Identity: Methodological and Conceptual Approaches across Disciplines (co-edited with Santos; American Psychological Association, 2015); and Studying Ethnic Minority and Economically Disadvantaged Populations: Methodological Challenges and Best Practices (with Knight and Roosa; American Psychological Association, 2009). Dr. Umaña-Taylor has served as associate editor for the Journal of Research on Adolescence, as a member of the Executive Council of the Society for Research on Adolescence, and on the Board of Directors for the National Council on Family Relations. Her contributions to mentorship and student training have been recognized with national awards such as the Outstanding Mentor Award from the Society for Research on Adolescence and the Marie F. Peters Award from the National Council on Family Relations. She is an inducted Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, and the National Council on Family Relations.

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