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Associate Professor of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech
Chair of ASEE's CDEI during the Year of Impact on Racial Equity

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Dr. Homero Murzi (he/él/his) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech with honorary appointments at the University of Queensland (Australia) and University of Los Andes (Venezuela). Homero is the leader of the Engineering Competencies, Learning, and Inclusive Practices for Success (ECLIPS) Lab where he leads a team focused on doing research on contemporary, culturally relevant, and inclusive pedagogical practices, emotions in engineering, competency development, and understanding the experiences of traditionally marginalized people (e.g., Latinx, international students, Indigenous students) in engineering from an asset-based perspective. Homero is interested in understanding how to develop effective and culturally relevant learning environments that can promote the sustainable competencies engineering students require to succeed in the contemporary workforce. His goal is to develop engineering education practices that value the capital that traditionally marginalized students, bring into the field. Homero aspires to change discourses around broadening participation in engineering and promoting action to change. Homero has been recognized as a Diggs Teaching Scholar, a Graduate Academy for Teaching Excellence Fellow, a Global Perspectives Fellow, a Diversity Scholar, a Fulbright Scholar, an inductee into the Bouchet Honor Society, and received the prestigious NSF CAREER award. Homero serves as the VT Engineering Education Chair for Equity and Inclusion, and the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Incoming Chair for the Commission on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (CDEI). He holds degrees in Industrial Engineering (BS, MS) from the National Experimental University of Táchira, Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Temple University, and Engineering Education (PhD) from Virginia Tech.

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Elizabeth (Liz) Litzler, Ph.D., is the Director of the Center for Evaluation & Research for STEM Equity (CERSE) at the University of Washington (UW) and an Affiliate Assistant Professor in UW Sociology. She was the 2020-2021 Chair of the ASEE Commission on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (CDEI). She is a former Board Member of Women in Engineering ProActive Network (WEPAN) and the recipient of the 2020 WEPAN Founders Award. She has led social science research projects such as the UW portion of NSF funded Revolutionizing Engineering Departments Participatory Action Research (REDPAR) and the Sloan funded Project to Assess Climate in Engineering (PACE). She also manages program evaluations that provide actionable strategies to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM fields. This includes evaluation of NSF ADVANCE, S-STEM, INCLUDES, and IUSE projects, and climate studies of students, faculty, and staff. Her social science research covers many topics and has used critical race theories such as Community Cultural Wealth to describe the experiences of systemically marginalized students in engineering.

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