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Dr. Sylvia Mendez is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Leadership, Research, and Foundations at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. She earned a PhD in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies from the University of Kansas, a MS in Student Affairs in Higher Education from Colorado State University, and a BA in Economics from Washington State University. Dr. Mendez's research centers on effective faculty mentoring practices, broadening participation in higher education, and the educational attainment and schooling experiences of Mexican descent youth in the mid-20th century.

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Valerie Martin Conley is dean of the College of Education and professor of Leadership, Research, and Foundations at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. She previously served as director of the Center for Higher Education, professor, and department chair at Ohio University. She was the PI for the NSF funded research project: Academic Career Success in Science and Engineering-Related Fields for Female Faculty at Public Two-Year Institutions. She is co-author of The Faculty Factor: Reassessing the American Academy in a Turbulent Era.

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Rich is a Ph.D. student in Educational Leadership, Research, and Policy at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. He has over 25 years of experience teaching, leading, and consulting in rural, suburban, international, and urban K-12 communities.

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Comas Lamar Haynes is a Principal Research Engineer / faculty member of the Georgia Tech Research Institute and Joint Faculty Appointee at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. His research includes modeling steady state and transient behavior of advanced energy systems, inclusive of their thermal management, and the characterization and optimization of novel cycles. He has advised graduate and undergraduate research assistants and has received multi-agency funding for energy systems analysis and development. Sponsor examples include the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy and NASA. Dr. Haynes also develops fuel cells and alternative energy systems curricula for public and college courses and experimental laboratories. Additionally, he is the co-developer of the outreach initiative, Educators Leading Energy Conservation and Training Researchers of Diverse Ethnicities (ELECTRoDE). He received his Bachelor of Science degree from Florida A&M University and his graduate degrees (culminating in a Ph.D.) from Georgia Tech; and all of the degrees are in the discipline of Mechanical Engineering.

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Dr. Rosario A. Gerhardt is Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. In addition to her engineering research interests, she is also interested in improving diversity at the K-12, undergraduate, graduate and faculty level. She has been primary organizer as well as a faculty mentor for several Future Faculty Workshops. She also worked in the Office of Institute Diversity at Georgia Tech on a part-time basis from 2011-2015. She was named Senior Goizueta Faculty Chair in 2015.

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Dr. Kinnis Gosha (Go-Shay) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Director of the Culturally Relevant Computer Lab at Morehouse College. Dr. Gosha’s research interests include conversational agents, social media data analytics, computer science education, broadening participation in computing and culturally relevant computing. More specifically, Gosha's passion lies in his research in virtual mentoring where he has several peer-reviewed research publications. Gosha's Culturally Relevant Computing Lab is comprised of approximately 10 top undergraduate researchers each year from Morehouse College, Spelman College and Clark Atlanta University. The lab investigates research problems centered on creating innovative computing technologies to solve cultural problems and issues. To date, Dr. Gosha has accrued over $20 million dollars in sponsored research funding and over 60 peer reviewed research publications.

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