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Dr. Villanueva is an Assistant Professor in the Engineering Education Department and an Adjunct Professor in the Bioengineering Department in Utah State University. Her multiple roles as an engineer, engineering educator, engineering educational researcher, and professional development mentor for underrepresented populations has aided her in the design and integration of educational and physiological technologies to research 'best practices' for student professional development and training. In addition, she is developing methodologies around hidden curriculum, academic emotions and physiology, and engineering makerspaces.

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Laura Gelles is a second-year Ph.D. student at Utah State University in the Department of Engineering Education. Born in Reno, Nevada, she received her bachelor degree in Environmental Engineering from the University of Nevada Reno and her Master’s degree in Environmental Engineering from the University of North Dakota. She is currently researching ethical mentoring and hidden curriculum in graduate women students in science and engineering. Her other research interests include mixed-methods research design, integrating sustainability and professional ethics into the engineering curriculum, and communication of science and engineering concepts to non-technical audiences.

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Marialuisa Di Stefano is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Utah State University, advancing research projects on bilingual education in New England and in Puerto Rico. She is an education researcher and advocates for historically marginalized groups in elementary education. Her research interest lies in bridging perspectives between transnational civic education, bilingual education, and STEM education, and how such intersections may lead to a more equitable education system. During the last 5 years, she worked specifically with emergent bilinguals in Utah and in the Boston area, looking at the ways students’ funds of knowledge, especially languages and belonging, intersect with their identity development, and their understanding of mathematics and science contents. She approaches her study through a culturally sustaining pedagogy lens that she developed through her experience teaching, tutoring, and observing K-12 students in Italy and in the United States for the past 15 years.

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Buffy Smith, Ph.D. is a sociologist, educator, and consultant. She is the founding associate dean of Dougherty Family College and professor of Sociology at the University of St. Thomas. She earned her B.A. in Sociology at Marquette University and a M.S. and Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The courses she teach include Social Problems, Race & Ethnicity, Social Stratification, and the Sociology Senior Seminar. She was an Association for the Study of Higher Education /Lumina Fellow in 2003. Dr. Smith’s primary research interests include examining racial and class disparities within the higher education system. She also writes on policy issues dealing with mentoring, access, retention, equity, and diversity in higher education. She has over 10 years of experience researching how colleges and universities can assist underrepresented students with understanding and navigating the institutional culture of higher education in order to achieve academic success. Dr. Smith has received several awards and grants that recognize her research on diversity issues in higher education. Dr. Smith’s publications have been featured in research and practice oriented journals such as African –American Research Perspectives and Equity & Excellence in Education. In addition, she is the author of the book, Mentoring At-Risk Students through the Hidden Curriculum of Higher Education (Lexington Books, 2013). She can be reached via email at bsmith@stthomas.edu.

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Dr. Renetta Garrison Tull is Associate Vice Provost for Strategic Initiatives at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC: An Honors University in Maryland). She serves Professor of the Practice for the College of Engineering and Information Technology, and is part of the Engagement Team. She is also on detail with the University System of Maryland (USM), where she is Special Assistant to the Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, and Director of Pipeline Professional Programs for the system’s 12 academic institutions. She is the Co-PI and Founding Director for the National Science Foundation’s PROMISE: Maryland’s Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP), and Co-PI for the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) and Bridge to the Doctorate programs for the USM. Dr. Tull serves on a number of boards for women and diversity in STEM initiatives throughout the US and in Latin America. She is Vice President of Initiatives for the Latin and Caribbean Consortium of Engineering Institutions (LACCEI), and co-leads the "Women in STEM" initiatives for the organization. As a former professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, her engineering and speech science research covered topics of accessibility. Her current research in Maryland looks at intersections of social science theories, STEM equity, and physics. She was a “Cover Girl” for O’Reilly Media’s “Women in Data” issue in 2015, a finalist for the 2015 Global Engineering Deans Council/Airbus Diversity Award, Sci Chic/Medium.com 35 “Women STEM on Social Media Stars” (July 1, 2016), and 2016 winner of the Claire Felbinger Award for Diversity from ABET. She is a Tau Beta Pi “Eminent Engineer,” and can be found online @Renetta_Tull and https://renettatull.wordpress.com/.

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Susan M. Lord received a B.S. from Cornell University and the M.S. and Ph.D. from Stanford University. She is currently Professor and Chair of Electrical Engineering at the University of San Diego. Her teaching and research interests include electronics, optoelectronics, materials science, first year engineering courses, feminist and liberative pedagogies, engineering student persistence, and student autonomy. Her research has been sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Dr. Lord is a fellow of the ASEE and IEEE and is active in the engineering education community including serving as General Co-Chair of the 2006 Frontiers in Education (FIE) Conference, on the FIE Steering Committee, and as President of the IEEE Education Society for 2009-2010. She is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Education. She and her coauthors were awarded the 2011 Wickenden Award for the best paper in the Journal of Engineering Education and the 2011 and 2015 Best Paper Awards for the IEEE Transactions on Education. In Spring 2012, Dr. Lord spent a sabbatical at Southeast University in Nanjing, China teaching and doing research.

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Lisa Benson is a Professor of Engineering and Science Education at Clemson University, with a joint appointment in Bioengineering. Her research focuses on the interactions between student motivation and their learning experiences. Her projects involve the study of student perceptions, beliefs and attitudes towards becoming engineers and scientists, and their problem solving processes. Other projects in the Benson group include effects of student-centered active learning, self-regulated learning, and incorporating engineering into secondary science and mathematics classrooms. Her education includes a B.S. in Bioengineering from the University of Vermont, and M.S. and Ph.D. in Bioengineering from Clemson University.

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Donna Riley is Kamyar Haghighi Head of the School of Engineering Education and Professor of Engineering Education at Purdue University.

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Gery Ryan is Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs and core faculty at the Pardee RAND Graduate School where he teaches policy analysis and methods courses and mentors graduate students. Trained as a medical anthropologist, Ryan has conducted research on decision-making processes, ethnographies of health care, and the integration of qualitative and quantitative methodologies. As a methodologist, Ryan specializes in applying systemic methods to qualitative research and designing tools for formative, process, and summative evaluations. He has taught graduate courses in advanced ethnographic methods and text analysis and has over 20 years of experience conducting and analyzing qualitative data and running methods seminars in the United States and abroad. His work and collaboration with others cuts across mental and physical health and he has done research on HIV/AIDS, depression, serious mental illness, childhood diarrhea and acute respiratory illnesses, obesity and complementary and alternative medicine. Ryan has worked extensively in Latin America and Africa on health-related issues and helped redesign and implement a large-scale education reform in Qatar.

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