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Lenz Bayas is an instructional design consultant interested in the intersection between race, culture, equity, and learning. Starting his career as a teacher with a focus on urban education, he has since transitioned into the corporate training field taking on clients in various sectors, including financial services, nonprofit, and higher education. Over the course of his career, he has grown to appreciate honing a systems view and taking a performance consulting approach in solving "messy" problems or seizing organizational opportunities. He is currently pursuing an M.S. degree in Organizational Performance and Workplace Learning from Boise State University where he also serves as a member of the Marginalized and Cross-Cultural Research & Design Learning Tech Group, or "MarCC Lab," under the direction of Dr. Lisa Giacumo.

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Lisa Giacumo is an assistant professor of Organizational Performance and Workplace Learning at Boise State University. She teaches courses in instructional design, needs assessment, and e-learning. Her research interests focus on the use of data, instructional design, evaluation, and a systems-view to support marginalized populations, global training initiatives, and performance improvement.

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Chantel Early (she/her) graduated from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in 2014 with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, she recently separated from the Coast Guard however to focus on the OPWL Master’s program. Chantel lives in Port Angeles, WA with her husband Tim, who is a helicopter pilot, and their two dogs, Rey and Maddy. Currently, Chantel is working on investigating the outcomes of organizational systems designed to support engineers from low income, first generation, and underrepresented backgrounds.

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Briceland McLaughlin is an academic advisor at Boise State University. She graduated with an M.Ed. from the University of Kansas in 2011 and has worked at higher education institutions across the country over the last decade in both student affairs and academic support roles. Briceland is interested in the intersectionality of student development theory and curriculum design.

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Dr. Plumlee is certified as a Professional Engineer in the state of Idaho. He has spent the last ten years establishing the Ceramic MEMS laboratory at Boise State University. Dr. Plumlee is involved in numerous projects developing micro-electro-mechanical devices in LTCC including an Ion Mobility Spectrometer and microfluidic/chemical micro-propulsion devices funded by NASA.
Prior to arriving at Boise State University, Dr. Plumlee worked for Lockheed Martin Astronautics as a Mechanical Designer on structural airframe components for several aerospace vehicles. He developed and improved manufacturing processes for the Atlas/Centaur rocket program, managed the production implementation of the J-2 rocket program, and created the designs for structural/propulsion/electrical systems in both the Atlas/Centaur and J-2 programs. Dr. Plumlee also worked at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center as an engineer in the Propulsion Laboratory.
In practicing the engineering profession as a conduit for preparing future generations of engineers, he wants to provide students with both a technical competency and the ability to understand and respect the trust that is invested in us by society. As an educator, he guides future engineers through a learning process that develops a strong technical foundation and the ability to independently cultivate further technical competencies. He is particularly interested in advocating for project-oriented engineering education. He and a research team at Boise State University is currently participating in a project focused on encouraging the adoption of project-based techniques.

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Tammi Vacha-Haase currently serves as the Dean of the Graduate College at Boise State University. She received her Ph.D. in 1995 from Texas A&M University. Dr. Vacha-Haase has an extensive history of serving in leadership roles and positions focusing on graduate education and research. Throughout her career she has published on graduate training, with recent scholarship focusing on the relationship between graduate student behavior and professional training expectations.

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