Facilitators and Planning Team

Facilitators

Sean Bridgen

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.

NiCole Buchanan

Professor, Department of Psychology, Michigan State University

Dr. NiCole Buchanan researches the interplay of race, gender and victimization and how they impact the nature of harassment, its impact, and organizational best practices. She also studies faculty of color and ways in which their research is marginalized (i.e., epistemic exclusion). She has been highlighted in hundreds of media outlets, is a featured speaker including TEDx and National Public Radio (NPR), and provides bias and diversity-related training and consultation (e.g., medical professionals, faculty, clinicians, human resource managers, and police departments). NiCole is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, four divisions of the American Psychological Association (Society of Clinical Psychology, Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues, and Society for the Psychology of Women), and has received national and international awards for her research, teaching, and professional service.

Chris Castro

Associate Dean for Inclusion, Equity, and Diversity, College of Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Dr. Christian Castro is the Inaugural Associate Dean for Inclusion, Equity, and Diversity at the UW Madison College of Engineering. A national thought leader and expert in inclusive teaching, Chris joined the College of Engineering in January 2022, bringing to the college over fifteen years of experience in teaching, educational development, and consulting. Most recently, he directed Madison Teaching and Learning Excellence (MTLE), UW-Madison’s flagship professional development in teaching program for early-career faculty. His research interests span faculty professional identity development, sense of belonging and self-efficacy regulation, and the effects of instructional interventions on student learning.

April Dukes

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.

Levon Esters

Associate Dean, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Faculty Affairs, Purdue University Polytechnic Institute

Dr. Levon T. Esters is the Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Faculty Affairs at Purdue University’s Polytechnic Institute. Levon is also a Professor in the Department Agricultural Sciences Education and Communication and serves as Director of the Mentoring@Purdue (M@P) program, which is designed to increase the representation of students from marginalized and minoritized backgrounds receiving advanced post-secondary STEM-based agricultural and life sciences degrees in Purdue’s College of Agriculture.

Levon also holds the positions of Adjunct Professor in the School of Integrative Plant Science at Cornell University as well as a Senior Research Associate at the Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions. Levon is a nationally recognized scholar on mentoring, equity, and diversity in STEM-based agricultural and life sciences disciplines. His research focuses on issues of equity and access of marginalized and minoritized students with a concentration on the mentoring needs of Black graduate students, the STEM career development of students attending Historically Black Land Grant Universities, and educational and professional mobility and development of Black graduate students and faculty. Levon is among a few Black scholars in the United States conducting research in these areas, and has been able to serve as a role model for Black graduate students who are committed to broadening participation of marginalized and minoritized students in the Ag+STEM disciplines.

Levon was named a Fulbright Scholar and will be studying at the University of Southern Queensland. Levon earned his B.S. in Agricultural Business from Florida A&M University, his M.S. in Agricultural Education from North Carolina A&T State University, and his Ph.D. in Agricultural and Extension Education from The Pennsylvania State University.

Louis Macias

Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison

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

In January 2022, Dr. Louis Macias, became the first Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for the University of Wisconsin-Madison's College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. Louis leads the college’s new Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, including developing activities that contribute to the recruitment, retention, and success of underrepresented students, staff, and faculty; enhancing inclusive teaching practices; and supporting research excellence that reflects the college’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Previously, Louis served as the Executive Director of Recruitment, Diversity and Inclusion for the UW-Madison Police Department. In this role, he led 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.

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 (8) and Olivia (2).

Ebony McGee

Associate Professor, Diversity and STEM Education, Vanderbilt University

As an associate professor of diversity and STEM education at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College, Dr. Ebony McGee investigates the racialized experiences, along with social, material, and health costs that adversely affect the education and career trajectories of underrepresented groups of color. With funding from six NSF grants, she cofounded the Explorations in Diversifying Engineering Faculty Initiative or EDEFI (pronounced “edify”). Ebony also cofounded the Institute in Critical Quantitative and Mixed Methodologies Training for Underrepresented Scholars (ICQCM).

Christine Pfund

Director, Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research (CIMER), University of Wisconsin-Madison

Dr. Christine Pfund is a senior scientist with the Wisconsin Center for Education Research and the Department of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW). Chris earned her Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology, followed by post-doctoral research in Plant Pathology, both at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her work focuses on developing, implementing, documenting, and studying interventions to optimize research mentoring relationships across science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM). She co-authored the original Entering Mentoring curriculum and co-authored many papers documenting the effectiveness of this approach. Chris is the principal investigator of the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) Coordination Center. She is also director of the Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experience in Research at UW-Madison (CIMER). She is a member of the National Academies committee that recently published the consensus report and online guide, The Science of Effective Mentorship in STEMM.

Kecia Thomas

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.

Planning Team

Don Gillian-Daniel

Aspire National Change Co-Lead, Wisconsin's Equity and Inclusion Laboratory (WEI Lab), 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. Previously, 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, as well as working with the Collaborative for Advancing Learning & Teaching. He now works through the WEI Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Robin Greenler

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.

Lucas Hill

Associate Researcher & Evaluator, Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Dr. Lucas B. Hill is a researcher and evaluator investigating multi-sector and multi-institutional higher education collaborative reform initiatives from a systems perspective. In particular, his work focuses on how collaborative dynamics within reform projects affect their change activities, which influence desired outcomes. He is a member of research and evaluation teams of the NSF Aspire Alliance and two other large projects: (1) the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL), a network of 37 universities dedicated to improving STEM education through graduate student teaching professional development; and (2) a NSF-funded initiative to build an open-access multimodal inclusive teaching course for future and current STEM faculty. Lucas earned his Ph.D. in Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education from Michigan State University.

Shannon Patton

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.

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