Associate Dean for Student Success and Instructional Innovation, Professor of Neurobiology, and Director, RISE /MARC Students Training, University of Texas at San Antonio

Edwin J. Barea-Rodriguez is a professor of neuroscience and Associate Dean for Student Success and Instructional Innovation at The University of Texas at San Antonio. His primary focus is student success, retention, and improving pedagogy in STEM disciplines. He is a member of the steering committee for My Brother’s Keeper San Antonio (MBKSA) collaborative and currently serves as co-chair of the organization’s Post-Secondary Success group. MBKSA collaborative works to remove systemic barriers to safety, education, and career success for young boys and men of color. He is a member of the NIH Advisory Committee to the Director Working Group on Diversity. He is the Director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences-funded Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement (RISE) and the Maximizing Access to Research Careers (MARC) U-STAR programs that provide financial support and mentorship for underrepresented students to prepare them to pursue Ph.D. studies in biomedical and behavioral disciplines.

Associate Director for External and Institutional Partnerships, NACADA: The Global Community for Academic Advising

Dr. Sean Bridgen is the Associate Director for External and Institutional Partnerships at NACADA: The Global Community for Academic Advising and is a faculty member in the Department of Special Education, Counseling, and Student Affairs at Kansas State University. Prior to his appointment with NACADA, Sean worked on college campuses for over 20 years in various roles in academic advising and registrar’s offices.

Sean’s research interests are studying higher education as a complex social system, the graduate curriculum of academic advising, social justice in higher education, and comparative issues in academic advising and personal tutoring. He has published his research in peer reviewed journals and has served as on the editorial board for the NACADA Review and The Mentor: An Academic Advising Journal.

Sean holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh, a Master of Arts in Student Affairs in Higher Education from Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP), and a Doctor of Education in Administration and Leadership Studies, also from IUP.

Faculty and Future Faculty Program Director and Pitt-CIRTL Institutional Co-leader, University of Pittsburgh

Dr. April Dukes is the Faculty and Future Faculty Program Director for the Engineering Educational Research Center (EERC) and the Institutional Co-leader for Pitt-CIRTL (Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning) at the University of Pittsburgh. April leads local professional development courses and facilitates workshops on instructional and mentoring best practices for both current and future STEM faculty. April is experienced in both synchronous and asynchronous online and in-person teaching environments. Throughout her graduate and professional career, she has mentored trainees at various stages, in discipline-specific content and, most currently, in career development, educational research, and course design. April currently collaborates on the national educational research initiative, the Aspire Alliance, and was a collaborator of the NSF INCLUDES Alliance, in order to support systemic changes towards excellence and inclusivity in higher education.

Executive Director for Recruitment, Diversity and Inclusion, University of Wisconsin-Madison Police Department

Pronunciation: Louis (LOO-ISS) Macias (MUH-SEE-US)

Since 2019, Dr. Louis Macias has served as the Executive Director of Recruitment, Diversity and Inclusion for the UW-Madison Police Department. In this role, he leads various functions within the department including recruitment and hiring, onboarding and support for new employees, diversity, equity and inclusion training, fostering a healthy workplace climate, and supporting micro-and-macro-level efforts to build positive relationships between the department and the UW-Madison campus community it serves.

Louis has spent his entire career in education. He began his career as a middle and high school social studies teacher, a cherished role he held for 7 years. For the last 11 years, he has served in a number of formal leadership roles in higher education at universities in both Florida and Wisconsin. These roles have included work in areas such as academic advising, pre-college programs, admissions/enrollment management, fundraising and multicultural affairs, among others.

Louis earned his undergraduate degree in psychology from Florida State University, his Master’s degree in K-12 Educational Leadership from Nova Southeastern University and his doctoral degree in Higher Education Administration from Florida State University. Having moved to Wisconsin from his hometown of Miami, Florida in 2015, Louis now resides in the Madison area with his wife Jamie and daughters Sofia (7) and Olivia (1).

Associate Director, Center for the Advancement of Teaching, Florida State University

Sophia Rahming, PhD, is an Associate Director in the Center for the Advancement of Teaching at Florida State University. Her major research interests lie in the area of science identity construction in international women of color; migration experiences of international women of color; gender in education and development; teaching and learning in STEM education.

Dean of College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Psychology, University of Alabama at Birmingham

Dr. Thomas is an expert in the psychology of workplace diversity. Her scholarship and institutional engagements focus on the issues of strategic diversity recruitment, supporting diversity in STEM workplaces, and understanding the career experiences of high potential women of color. She is the author of over 60 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters as well as the first I/O diversity textbook Diversity Dynamics in the Workplace (Thomson Wadsworth). She also served as editor of six volumes, including Diversity Resistance in the Workplace vol. 1 & 2 (Taylor-Francis/Routledge) and Diversity Ideologies in Organizations (Routledge). Her research has been funded by federal agencies, for-profit and non-profit institutions, and corporate foundations. She is an elected-Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Society for the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity and Race, and the Society of I/O Psychology. She is also a past recipient of the Janet Chusmir Award for Distinguished Service from the Academy of Management.

Dr. Thomas earned a B.A. in Psychology and Spanish from Bucknell University and her M.S. and Ph.D. in I/O Psychology from the Pennsylvania State University. She is also a graduate of the HERS Management Institute at Wellesley College, the SEC Academic Leadership Development Program, and the University System of Georgia Executive Leadership Institute.

Aspire National Change Co-Lead, Collaborative for Advancing Learning & Teaching, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Dr. Don Gillian-Daniel engages faculty and staff in exploring how to teach more inclusively. Instead of just discussing what to do, he uses an applied improvisational approach to challenge participants to practice, in real time, how they will respond. For over a decade he has developed and taught face-to-face and synchronous online graduate courses about effective and inclusive teaching. In addition, he has led sessions about inclusive teaching at Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan, addressed implicit bias in the college classroom for National Science Foundation-funded initiatives, and consulted with national non-profits like the Aldo Leopold Foundation. Don was an Associate Director of the Delta Program in Research, Teaching and Learning, and Institutional Administrative Leader for the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL) Network. He now works through the Collaborative for Advancing Learning & Teaching at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Aspire National Change Co-Lead, Assistant Director, Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning, (CIRTL) , University of Wisconsin - Madison

Robin Greenler works with faculty and future faculty to support the development of evidenced-based and inclusive teaching practices for STEM undergraduates. As co-lead of the Aspire Alliance National Change Initiative and Assistant Director for the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL), Robin participates in the development of several national learning communities developing programming, professional development and teaching materials that support inclusive pedagogies, effective college teaching, and effective pedagogy in the online synchronous classroom. As Co-PI for NSF IUSE Inclusive Teaching project and NIH Postdoctoral Academy project she is part of creating one Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on postdoctoral professional development and another on Inclusive Teaching.

Project Manager, Aspire National Change and the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL), University of Wisconsin-Madison

Shannon Patton is the Project Manager of the NSF INCLUDES Aspire Alliance's National Change Initiative. In her role with Aspire National Change, Shannon coordinates team meetings and communications, organizes professional development opportunities, and assists with the development of publications and resources. Shannon holds a Masters in Meteorology from Iowa State University (ISU). During her time as a graduate student, Shannon engaged in the development of educational resources and mentored students for their summer research projects. These experiences grew her interest in the intersection of STEM, education, and outreach.