Think Big Diversity: Advice for Aspiring #STEM Ph.D. Graduate Students, Postdocs, and Junior Faculty

Read Dr. Andrew Williams’ #ThinkBigDiversity summary of his 2015 PROMISE SSI keynote.

This past weekend, I was honored and humbled to speak of around 180 aspiring #STEM professor’s at Maryland’s National Science Foundation funded PROMISE AGEP #ThinkBigDiversity Summer Success Institute workshop, led by Dr. Renetta Tull.  It was so encouraging and heartening to see so many African American, Latino/Latina, and Native American STEM graduate students, postdocs and faculty.  As a former Spelman College faculty member and department chair, I was especially delighted to learn about #teamgetitdone, a.k.a. the Sisters in Dissertation House.  Speaking to this group was a little nostalgic because in the late 90’s, I had attended an NSF Engineering Education Scholars Program that was led by Denice Denton at the University of Wisconsin-Madison before she left to become an engineering Dean at the University of Washington.  This program helped me gain insight into the process of getting a Ph.D., starting a research program, and being a productive faculty member.

As…