# data[].attributes.body
Karina H. Nakayama is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU). Dr. Nakayama's lab develops regenerative and immunomodulatory biomaterials to enhance engineered vasculature, muscle, and complex multi-tissue composites to develop therapies for ischemic cardiovascular diseases and traumatic musculoskeletal injuries. We approach these engineering challenges using biomaterial spatial patterning and immunomodulation combined with insights gained through computational biology and regenerative rehabilitation.

Prior to OHSU, Dr. Nakayama received her Ph.D in Biomedical Engineering from the University of California, Davis with her dissertation work aimed at developing regenerative therapies for congenital kidney diseases using decellularized kidney matrices and directed differentiation of stem cells towards renal lineages. She performed her postdoctoral work at Stanford University in the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery working towards enhancing angiogenesis in ischemic limbs and engineering atheroprotective vascular grafts and myocardial tissues through the manipulation of spatial and mechanical properties.

# data[].attributes.headline
Demographic Options for the NSF INCLUDES Aspire Alliance: A Living, Research-Informed Inclusive Guide for Selecting Demographics

# data[].attributes.subject
Demographic Options for the NSF INCLUDES Aspire Alliance: A Living, Research-Informed Inclusive Guide for Selecting Demographics

# data[].attributes.body
This is a living, research-based, inclusive guide for selecting demographics developed by the research team of the Aspire Alliance.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Demographic Options for Aspire v.2 030320.pdf

# data[].attributes.headline
Safe travels everyone! Thanks for your partnership! 

# data[].attributes.subject
Safe travels everyone! Thanks for your partnership! 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
Boats and boating--Equipment and supplies

# data[].attributes.headline
Crossroads Antiracism Organizing and Training

# data[].attributes.subject
Crossroads Antiracism Organizing and Training

# data[].attributes.body
This organization does a fantastic job at providing training on Antiracism and EDI.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) is an umbrella organization of biological societies. In 2020, AIBS developed a plan to intentionally assess

# data[].attributes.body
Article by David Asai, where he introduces the term PEERs—persons excluded because of their ethnicity or race.

# data[].attributes.body
https://uwmadison.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9FgifBFkOYLqdbU

# data[].attributes.body
Author of "Lessons from Plants"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Beronda L. Montgomery – Living my purpose in multiple domains and cherishing every moment

# data[].attributes.body
Two films by filmmaker Dr. Kendall Moore on how to diversify STEM.

Can We Talk?: Difficult Conversations with Underrepresented People of Color: Sense of Belonging and Obstacles to STEM Fields

Can We Talk? 2: White Allies

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Can We Talk? Difficult Conversations with Underrepresented People of Color: Sense of Belonging and Obstacles to STEM Fields (50 min.)

Can We Talk?

The film series Can We Talk? explores the issue of 'social belonging' in the context of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) and the effect it has on the lives of underrepresented people of color (UR-POC) who are pursuing an education or career in STEM; or, have decided to leave because of an overwhelming feeling of not belonging. The film has screened at venues across the U.S., at scientific conferences, colleges and universities, federal agencies, and for non-profit organizations. In post-discussion screenings, it has become explicitly clear that institutions want to expand the STEM workforce to include UR-POC, but how to do that, moving forward, requires a better understanding of the lives lived (currently and historically) of UR-POC.

What we offer

The film is not currently for sale or rent. We work with your organization, school, or institution, to provide interventions and training around your unique set of challenges and assets. We offer screenings, workshops, moderated panels, and facilitated 'difficult-to-have' conversations.

Workshop topics include:

-Creating a personal STEM narrative

-Representation Matters: Encoding and Decoding Predominantly White Spaces

-Creating Inclusive Labs

-Understanding the Importance of White Allyship

-The Social Psychology of Teaching and Mentoring People of Color

Please contact us today for a consultation.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Can We Talk? Difficult Conversations with Underrepresented People of Color: Sense of Belonging and Obstacles to STEM Fields (50 min.) Can We Talk? The film series Can We Talk?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Day 02 of the LED-BIO Town Hall and Think Tank 2023 focused on tackling LED-BIO Challenge 02, which addresses the need to integrate scientists in transitional career stages. Engaging discussions centered on strategies for professional societies to support scientists during these transitions, establishing them as enduring homes for scholars, and promoting positive changes in disciplinary culture. It was an exceptional experience surrounded by remarkable individuals and splendid weather at the Marine Biological Laboratory. During the break, we enjoyed the beautiful weather and captured memorable moments. To join us virtually for the LED-BIO Town Hall and Think Tank 2023, Day 03, and for more information, shoot an email at sakib.hussen@goucher.edu#ledbio #scidiversity #inclusioninstem

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Abdul K. Siam on LinkedIn: #ledbio #scidiversity #inclusioninstem

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Welcome to Day 03 of LED-BIO Town Hall and Think Tank 2023, taking place at the inspiring Marine Biological Laboratory. Building on the insightful discussions...

# data[].attributes.body
Focus on facilitated conversations and acknowledging comments made through facilitation practices

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Planning a Discussion Program?

We may be able to help. We have partnered with a wide range of organizations, including public, private, educational, nonprofit, and other groups, to provide direct in-kind assistance in planning, organizing, and conducting different discussion programs and initiatives. We're always looking for new partners to work with in developing more and better exploratory and generative conversations. Depending on the particular goals and circumstances of your program, we may be able to help with planning, facilitating, or training facilitators.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Interactivity Foundation - Engaging citizens in the exploration and development of possibilities for public policy.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Interactivity Foundation works to engage citizens in the exploration and development of possibilities for public policy through small group discussions.

# data[].attributes.body
Scroll down to see an example of a PEER Spotlight.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research - Home

# data[].attributes.body
SABER's PEER Network started as a Special Interest Group and is currently in transition to a standing committee of the organization, with more direct lines of communication to Executive Committee (monthly Steering Committee meeting attended by standing committee chairs + EC), and more direct access to society resources (can request funds).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Writing Buddies

In our lives, there's always some demand that needs to be taken care of urgently, especially when it comes to teaching, service, or our own personal lives. But it's also important to set aside time for our research. Even 1hr a day, or a few hours a week, can keep us in touch with our research projects and make sure we make steady progress on them. (By , we also mean brainstorming, analysis, coding, background reading- anything that helps us forward on our research or scholarship goals.)

The goal of the Program is to connect people together, in pairs or trios, to together regularly over Zoom. The general format will be a few minutes to catch up and chat, a few minutes to state our goals for the session, and the bulk of the time actually !

If you'd like to join, please email Melinda Owens at mtowens@ucsd.edu or watch for our recruitment emails!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research - PEER Network

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Writing Buddies In our lives, there's always some demand that needs to be taken care of urgently, especially when it comes to teaching, service, or our own personal lives. But it's also important to set aside time for our research.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Justice for Underrepresented Scholars Training in Biophysics (JUST-B) Poster Session celebrates the achievements of underrepresented and underserved students, postdocs, and early career researchers in the field of biophysics. The poster session will promote the endeavors of trainees, offer support through networking opportunities, and serve as a recruitment venue for those seeking to diversify their pool of future graduate students, postdocs, faculty, staff scientists, journal editors, or any other career within biophysics. The goal is to address and mitigate inequities in the biophysics community by providing a space for underrepresented trainees to share their scientific accomplishments and take steps toward advancing their careers. The poster session will take place at the Annual Meeting each year on Monday from 3:00 PM-5:00 PM.

Students, postdocs, and early career researchers who wish to present posters during the session must submit an application and meet the following criteria:

The applicant must be an author on a poster being presented at the Annual Meeting, with an abstract submitted by the late abstract deadline of January 4, 2024.

The applicant must be a member of a group recognized as underrepresented in the biomedical sciences, including:

Black or African American

Hispanic or Latino

American Indian or Alaska Native

Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander

LGBTQ+

Individuals with disabilities, defined as physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities

Individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds, defined in the Notice of NIH's Interest in Diversity as those who meet two or more of the following criteria:

Were or currently are homeless, as defined by the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act

Were or currently are in the foster care system, as defined by the Administration for Children and Families

Were eligible for the Federal Free and Reduced Lunch Program for two or more years

Have/had no parents or legal guardians who completed a bachelor's degree

Were or currently are eligible for Federal Pell grants

Received support from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) as a parent or child

Grew up in one of the following areas: a) a U.S. rural area or b) a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services-designated Low-Income and Health Professional Shortage Areas. (Only one of these two possibilities can be used as a criterion for the disadvantaged background definition.)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Justice for Underrepresented Scholars Training in Biophysics (JUST-B) Poster Session celebrates the achievements of underrepresented and underserved students, postdocs, and early career researchers in the field of biophysics.

# data[].attributes.body
Veronica is a professor of biology at the University of the Incarnate Word, a Hispanic-serving institution in San Antonio, Texas. Martinez Acosta earned a PhD in zoology from Texas A&M University in the laboratory of Dr. Mark Zoran. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Texas under the direction of Dr. Bing Zang, now at the University of Missouri. Her lab investigates cellular and molecular mechanisms governing neural regeneration and wound healing using the annelid worm, Lumbriculus variegatus. Her most recent work includes a collaboration characterizing photoreception in Lumbriculus. This research, carried out primarily by undergraduates, has been supported by the NSF and the DoD. Veronica has extensive experience teaching undergraduate courses in cellular biology, developmental biology, and the neurosciences. She has proudly served as an executive officer for the Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience (FUN) and currently serves as Chair of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology Education Committee. She mentors junior faculty and postdocs through the BRAINS program and SEEDiversity APA program. Veronica has served as the co-director/co-PI of the MBL NSF REU program, Biological Discovery in Woods Hole, Massachusetts for several years and is an active member of the Whitman Center Steering Committee.  She has embraced her role within the scientific community to serve as a voice for those who are marginalized through invited talks and proceedings on justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in STEM.

# data[].attributes.wish_content.attachment_props.text
Working hard and having fun at Woods Hole as we participate in BIO-LED Think Tank and Town Hall representing SABER in important conversations about #scidiversity #inclusioninSTEM #ledbio

# data[].attributes.wish_content.attachment_props.original_text
Working hard and having fun at Woods Hole as we participate in BIO-LED Think Tank and Town Hall representing SABER in important conversations about #scidiversity #inclusioninSTEM #ledbio https://t.co/BTNiobS7jd

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.embed_code
Working hard and having fun at Woods Hole as we participate in BIO-LED Think Tank and Town Hall representing SABER in important conversations about #scidiversity #inclusioninSTEM #ledbio pic.twitter.com/BTNiobS7jd
— SABER (@SABERcommunity) October 6, 2023

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props_source.data.text
Working hard and having fun at Woods Hole as we participate in BIO-LED Think Tank and Town Hall representing SABER in important conversations about #scidiversity #inclusioninSTEM #ledbio https://t.co/BTNiobS7jd

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
Working hard and having fun at Woods Hole as we participate in BIO-LED Think Tank and Town Hall representing SABER in important conversations about #scidiversity #inclusioninSTEM #ledbio https://t.co/BTNiobS7jd

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
Working hard and having fun at Woods Hole as we participate in BIO-LED Think Tank and Town Hall representing SABER in important conversations about #scidiversity #inclusioninSTEM #ledbio

# data[].attributes.wish_content.attachment_props.text
Today at LED-BIO Town Hall, we discussed supporting scientists in transition. Join us in shaping the future of science. Email sakib.hussen@goucher.edu or DM on Twitter. Together, we can make a difference! 
#ledbio #scidiversity #inclusioninstem @ASCBiology

# data[].attributes.wish_content.attachment_props.original_text
Today at LED-BIO Town Hall, we discussed supporting scientists in transition. Join us in shaping the future of science. Email sakib.hussen@goucher.edu or DM on Twitter. Together, we can make a difference! 
#ledbio #scidiversity #inclusioninstem @ASCBiology https://t.co/d6dBZ2bF5X

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.embed_code
Today at LED-BIO Town Hall, we discussed supporting scientists in transition. Join us in shaping the future of science. Email sakib.hussen@goucher.edu or DM on Twitter. Together, we can make a difference! #ledbio #scidiversity #inclusioninstem @ASCBiology pic.twitter.com/d6dBZ2bF5X
— Sakib Hussen (@SakibHusse9836) October 6, 2023

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props_source.data.text
Today at LED-BIO Town Hall, we discussed supporting scientists in transition. Join us in shaping the future of science. Email sakib.hussen@goucher.edu or DM on Twitter. Together, we can make a difference! 
#ledbio #scidiversity #inclusioninstem @ASCBiology https://t.co/d6dBZ2bF5X

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
Today at LED-BIO Town Hall, we discussed supporting scientists in transition. Join us in shaping the future of science. Email sakib.hussen@goucher.edu or DM on Twitter. Together, we can make a difference! 
#ledbio #scidiversity #inclusioninstem @ASCBiology https://t.co/d6dBZ2bF5X

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
Today at LED-BIO Town Hall, we discussed supporting scientists in transition. Join us in shaping the future of science. Email sakib.hussen@goucher.edu or DM on Twitter. Together, we can make a difference! 
#ledbio #scidiversity #inclusioninstem @ASCBiology

# data[].attributes.wish_content.attachment_props.text
Day 02 of the LED-BIO Town Hall and Think Tank 2023 focused on tackling LED-BIO Challenge 02, which addresses the need to integrate scientists in transitional career stages.  During the break, we enjoyed the beautiful weather and captured memorable moments.
#ledbio #scidiversity

# data[].attributes.wish_content.attachment_props.original_text
Day 02 of the LED-BIO Town Hall and Think Tank 2023 focused on tackling LED-BIO Challenge 02, which addresses the need to integrate scientists in transitional career stages.  During the break, we enjoyed the beautiful weather and captured memorable moments.
#ledbio #scidiversity https://t.co/dMd0nasHwm

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.embed_code
Day 02 of the LED-BIO Town Hall and Think Tank 2023 focused on tackling LED-BIO Challenge 02, which addresses the need to integrate scientists in transitional career stages. During the break, we enjoyed the beautiful weather and captured memorable moments.#ledbio #scidiversity pic.twitter.com/dMd0nasHwm
— A.K. Siam (@AK47Siam) October 6, 2023

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props_source.data.text
Day 02 of the LED-BIO Town Hall and Think Tank 2023 focused on tackling LED-BIO Challenge 02, which addresses the need to integrate scientists in transitional career stages.  During the break, we enjoyed the beautiful weather and captured memorable moments.
#ledbio #scidiversity https://t.co/dMd0nasHwm

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
Day 02 of the LED-BIO Town Hall and Think Tank 2023 focused on tackling LED-BIO Challenge 02, which addresses the need to integrate scientists in transitional career stages.  During the break, we enjoyed the beautiful weather and captured memorable moments.
#ledbio #scidiversity https://t.co/dMd0nasHwm

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
Day 02 of the LED-BIO Town Hall and Think Tank 2023 focused on tackling LED-BIO Challenge 02, which addresses the need to integrate scientists in transitional career stages.  During the break, we enjoyed the beautiful weather and captured memorable moments.
#ledbio #scidiversity

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Abdul K. Siam on LinkedIn: #ledbio #scidiversity #inclusioninstem

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Day 02 of the LED-BIO Town Hall and Think Tank 2023 focused on tackling LED-BIO Challenge 02, which addresses the need to integrate scientists in transitional…

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Connecticut, Mansfield, CT, United States

Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, Mansfield, CT, United States

Beta Research Associates, Palmetto, FL, United States

El Instituto, University of Connecticut, Mansfield, CT, United States

Department of Engineering Education, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States

Department of Sociology, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, United States

The MacDonald Research Institute, Wesley Chapel, FL, United States

University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, United States

Our work focuses on women and underrepresented minority (URM) students' cultural models of engineering success (CMES) or beliefs about doing well in engineering. Because of its consequential effect on persistence, we pay special attention to the fit domain of CMES-student feelings of belonging in their engineering program. We examine 1) how student fit is affected by participatory social capital (i.e., participation in professional engineering organizations [PEOs] that have as part of their mission a goal to assist students in their STEM education and careers), as well as 2) the factors that affect students' decisions to participate in PEOs. Due to the traditional prioritization of majority norms in engineering programs, women and URM students' CMES may conflict with the cultures manifested in engineering departments. Analysis of interviews with 55 women and URM engineering students shows that PEOs, particularly gender- and race-focused PEOs, affect students' feelings of fit. PEOs affect student fit positively and primarily through expressive social capital-emotional support wherein students feel they fit in because PEOs provide a sense of community and opportunities to be around successful women and URM engineers. PEOs also allow students to build instrumental social capital, such as academic and professional skills, including networking and knowledge development. Encouragement from others and their desire to be around people like themselves played a central role in students joining PEOs. However, students identified time, financial, and fit issues that discouraged them from participating in PEOs. This investigation illuminates how socially distant others from PEOs affect student fit, extending previous work which uncovered how more proximal others affect fit as well as previous work finding that URM students participating in PEOs were more likely to persist in their engineering program. Research, theory, and practice applications are presented.

Introduction

For the last half-century, researchers have investigated differential declaration and persistence rates in STEM majors across groups, including gender and racial/ethnic groupings. During this period, studies tended to locate differences in STEM declaration and persistence within an individual's characteristics, such as their interest or ability (e.g., Goldrick-Rab, 2006; Faulkner, 2009; Cech et al., 2011). In addition, many of these studies used the pipeline model, which focused on how individuals and groups moved through education into careers ( Metcalf, 2010). More recently, scholars have found that individual variables, such as aptitude and interest, do not alone account for STEM declaration and persistence ( Acker and Feuerverger, 1996; Seymour, 1999; Margolis, et al., 2000; Summers and Hrabowski, 2006; Sax, 2008; Hill, et al., 2010; Shapiro and Sax, 2011). Therefore, researchers who aim to explain STEM persistence have shifted their focus by adopting structural explanations that take into account broader social forces, such as discrimination, economic inequality, and the limited representation of women and underrepresented racial minority (URM) students in the STEM curriculum, to explain the lower proportions of women and URM engineering students and workers ( McGee, 2020; Campbell-Montalvo et al., 2021). For instance, student participants in the landmark Seymour and Hewitt (1997) study cited disappointment with the culture of the field or reduced confidence as reasons for leaving STEM. Weston (2019) bolstered Seymour and Hewitt (1997) and found that lack of fitting in socially due to program structure or difficulty finding assistance to address problems were reasons students decided to leave STEM. Thus, the structure of university and department program culture, including STEM norms, has been shown to be a factor in retaining students.

We posited that there may be structural incongruities between the understandings of women and URM students about how to do well in engineering and institutional norms manifested in engineering department culture ( Smith et al., 2015). Students' understanding of how to do well in engineering, dubbed Cultural Models of Engineering Success (CMES), includes student understanding of how they fit in their engineering program ( Smith et al., 2015). Traditionally, engineering program norms prioritize the experiences of dominant groups, which impacts the ability of engineering departments to attract and retain a diversity of students ( Goldrick-Rab, 2006; McGee, 2020).

Echoing Weston (2019) that highlights the importance of assisting students in addressing problems encountered in their STEM degree programs, other research reveals that students linked their disappointment with STEM majors to a lack of advice received from specific influential people in their degree programs, such as engineering professors ( Nyquist et al., 1999; Marra et al., 2012) and advisors ( Prieto et al., 2009; Sutton and Sankar, 2011; Schmidt, et al., 2012). Social network analysis allows researchers to map relationships between students and such influential people. In such cases, students are referred to as the "ego" and comprise a focal point, while the influential people to whom student relationships are mapped are known as the "alters" ( Burt, 1982; Lin, 1999; Son and Lin, 2012; Tulin et al., 2018). Students, including Black women in mathematics fields ( Brown and Josephs, 1999; Morganson et al., 2010; Borum and Walker, 2011; Evans et al., 2011; Joseph et al., 2017; Leyva et al., 2021), who have access to homophilous alters (i.e., same-gender alters, same-race alters) receive culturally sustaining guidance when they experience obstacles and affirmation, which aids their persistence in the often unwelcoming STEM climate ( Campbell-Montalvo et al., 2021). Studies that examine the intersection of STEM department culture, women and URM student values, and social capital from alters who can help mitigate dissonance between department culture and women and URM student values offer insight into the structural factors shaping engineering persistence. Our research shows that women and URM students benefit from access to resources and advice from alters in students' social networks (i.e., network-based social capital), as well as alters in the organizations in which they participate (i.e., participatory social capital) ( Skvoretz et al., 2020; Campbell-Montalvo et al., 2021; Puccia et al., 2021; Smith et al., 2021). For example, Puccia et al. (2021) identified the role network-based social capital garnered from parents' advice played in students' declaration and persistence in their engineering majors. Parental advice included statements indicating their belief that their child could graduate with their engineering degree or encouraging them to persist even when their program became difficult. Likewise, Campbell-Montalvo et al. (2021) found that students' feelings of fit in engineering, especially Black students' feelings of fit, improved as they received advice from people in their social networks, including parents, high school teachers, and other alters. In such cases, alters explicitly warned students that others in engineering would negatively prejudge them because of their gender and/or race. Students who received such warnings were better able to negotiate fit when they experienced microaggressions and/or felt excluded. Similarly, based on interviews with 38 Black and Latinx engineering students, Johnson showed that ties that Black and Latinx students make with engineering peers of color "helped offset the psychosocial burden of ethnoracial marginalization experienced on a predominantly white campus and provided important academic support" (2018, p. 15). Collectively, these studies suggest that homophilous alters help students identify processes of marginalization, which in turn, helps students resist them ( Secules et al., 2018).

Participatory social capital refers to advice from people students meet by participating in STEM professional societies, such as Professional Engineering Organizations (PEOs), including those that are gender-focused (i.e., Society of Women Engineers [SWE]) or race/ethnicity-focused (i.e., National Society of Black Engineers [NSBE] or the Society for Hispanic Professional Engineers [SHPE]). Researchers have reported the value of PEOs to women and URM students, highlighting the role that participation in PEOs plays in reducing their feelings of isolation due to being numerical minorities ( Espinosa, 2011; Ong et al., 2018; Campbell-Montalvo et al., 2021; Smith et al., 2021), and increasing URM students' persistence in their program ( Smith et al., 2021). In our previous work, we analyzed two rounds of survey responses from ∼2,186 engineering students, in which half of the participants engaged in PEOs ( Smith et al., 2021). We found that Black and Latinx students who participated in race/ethnicity-focused PEOs (such as NSBE or SHPE) were more likely to persist in their engineering program (i.e., still be enrolled) in their second year than Black and Latinx students who did not participate in such organizations. Similarly, in a previous study using interviews with 44 diverse engineering juniors and seniors, the majority of women and URM students believed that their connections through their memberships in professional societies contributed to their persistence by providing resources such as free tutoring and information about professors' teaching and exam styles ( Borman, et al., 2010; Chanderbhan-Forde et al., 2012). The documented impacts of participatory social capital are relevant to informing research and structural approaches aimed at broadening participation in STEM, particularly for Black engineering students who, when compared to women and Latinx students, had the highest rates of involvement in gender- or race/ethnicity-focused PEOs ( Smith et al., 2021) and who experience some of the worst STEM department climates ( Campbell-Montalvo et al., 2021).

At this juncture, what remains unclear is how PEOs promote student persistence in STEM by reducing isolation or developing students' sense of fit, and whether PEOs mainly do so through the same mechanisms as network-based social capital (i.e., warnings of discrimination) similarly across groups. Thus, the goals of the present study are to elucidate the mechanisms through which PEOs and engineering persistence are related, including the effect of PEOs on student CMES (particularly fit) across groups, and investigate the factors that encourage or dissuade students from joining PEOs. We draw on interview data from 55 women and URM engineering undergraduate students to answer the following research questions:

(1) Across groups, how does participating in PEOs affect students' CMES?

(2) What factors affect students' decisions to join or not to join PEOs?

We aim to extend research at the nexus of STEM persistence, professional STEM societies, social capital, and fit/sense of belonging by investigating the development of fit through participatory social capital. Insights from this study can be used by universities and STEM professional societies to develop intersectional interventions and extend their efforts (both in student chapters and the parent organizations), offer encouragement and justification for participating in these societies, and support efforts to reduce obstacles to participation to help students take advantage of documented benefits of joining PEOs.

Theoretical Perspective: CMES (Fit) and Social Capital

By examining the patterned ways in which PEOs affect students' feelings of fit based on the ways students negotiate the engineering department's culture with the values they bring, we situate our work within 1) the fit domain of CMES, a particular type of cultural model of education ( Smith et al., 2015), and 2) social capital theory ( Lin, 2001), specifically participatory social capital as described in Skvoretz et al. (2020). Cultural models are how people structure their cognitions about their life experiences in particular areas, such as gender or education ( D'Andrade, 1995; Shore, 1996). Cultural models are different from regular knowledge because they are (to an extent) shared among groups and can differ between gender and racial/ethnic groups ( Holland and Eisenhart, 1990; Mukhopadhyay, 2004; Fryberg and Markus, 2007; Fryberg et al., 2013). Broader society and particular people with whom an individual comes in contact, such as family members and teachers, shape individuals' cultural models. Cultural models are internalized and mediate how individuals interact with others ( Strauss and Quinn, 1997). CMES includes the groups of assumptions and ideologies people have about how individuals in schools interact and should behave ( Fryberg and Markus, 2007; Fryberg et al., 2013). Specifically, CMES relate to how students understand engineering education and the people involved in the schooling process, including their understandings about how to be a successful student, how relationships between instructors and students function, and the role of education in personal development ( Fryberg and Markus, 2007; Fryberg et al., 2013; Smith et al., 2015).

The CMES domain of "fit" is of particular interest as a potential influencer of engineering persistence. Fit refers to a person's sense of belonging, including feelings of inclusion or welcome ( Campbell-Montalvo et al., 2021). Such feelings may vary in engineering contexts, such as the lab or the classroom ( McGee, 2020). We conceptualize fit as a structural outcome experienced by students who feel welcomed or like they belong based on their STEM department or program culture. Fit is affected by the environment cultivated by a STEM department's policies and actions, patterns in social relations (e.g., microaggressions), and identities (e.g., the underrepresentation of women and people of color among engineering faculty). However, fit is not considered an individual characteristic rooted in a student's abilities to match "correct" norms and values. Instead, feelings of fit are a consequence of how well universities and engineering programs make spaces for, include, and validate a range of students ( Campbell-Montalvo et al., 2021). Because engineering and STEM cultures are not founded upon the cultural experiences and traditions of women and people of color, resulting in the anti-blackness of STEM ( Bullock, 2017; Cedillo, 2018; Martin et al., 2019; Vakil and Ayers, 2019; Nxumalo and Gitari, 2021), women and URM students may be less likely to fit in engineering and STEM programs ( Goldrick-Rab, 2006).

Social capital theory explains how individuals access resources through webs of connections to people that enable them to accomplish goals that they might not have accomplished on their own ( Lin, 2001; Van der Gaag and Snijders, 2005; Lin, 2008). Social capital is relational, meaning that knowledge and skills are transmitted through relationships between people in the same network. Due to social inequity and patterns in social interaction, social capital may differ based on an individual's gender, age, and ethno-racial background ( Skvoretz et al., 2020). Thus, we use the terms 'network-based social capital' and 'participatory social capital' to locate one's access to social capital by how they are situated in relation to other people in a social context, which may determine how and what type of resources are received. In network-based social capital, alters are connected to an individual through that person's daily life, and include family members, peers in the same major, professors, and the like ( Skvoretz et al., 2020). Because of their potentially closer social proximity, network-based alters may be more able to offer resources unique to the individual, such as advice about classes or emotional support ( Borman et al., 2010; Chanderbhan-Forde et al., 2012; Campbell-Montalvo et al., 2021; Puccia et al., 2021). Participatory social capital is specific to an individual's involvement in an organization, such as a PEO, that has as part of its mission a goal to make resources available to its members ( Skvoretz et al., 2020). Students can access various resources based on the PEOs they choose to join and through the department of their major. Alters from PEOs, who may not be in the individual's social network and might be less socially proximal, may often offer advice about classes and career-related skills ( Smith et al., 2021).

Within social capital, it is also essential to distinguish the types of resources and support provided to students, including instrumental social capital and expressive social capital ( Puccia et al., 2021). Instrumental social capital is activated when an individual gains new resources specific to a goal (e.g., academic advising, help with homework). Expressive social capital is the support and encouragement provided to support an individual's emotional wellbeing (e.g., reassurance before an exam) ( Van der Gaag and Snijders, 2005). Expressive social capital is likely a primary driver of improvement in fit given the emotional and relational characteristics of fit and the potential of expressive capital to offer emotional support needed in the STEM environment, often unwelcoming to marginalized students ( Campbell-Montalvo et al., 2021). Puccia et al. (2021) found that both the instrumental and expressive social capital provided by parents was influential in women and URM students' declaration of an engineering major. Smith et al. (2021) found that participation in PEOs provided instrumental and expressive social capital, which was beneficial to women and URM students because it led to 1) academic and social integration, including gaining a sense of belonging or fit; 2) connections with potential employers; and 3) opportunities to develop professional and career-related skills. Overall, expressive and instrumental social capital positively garnered through participating in PEOs affected the chances that women and URM students would stay in their engineering programs.

In ( Campbell-Montalvo et al., 2021), which involved the same sample of 55 students as in the current study, we showed how acquired network-based social capital helped students feel they fit because alters warned women and URM students, particularly Black students, that they would experience discrimination. These warnings helped students understand these events when they happened and cope, thereby preventing a loss of fit. However, that study focused primarily on the influence of network-based social capital. Likewise, while Smith et al. (2021) showed PEOs helped students stay in STEM, it did not model the mechanisms through which PEOs were beneficial to students, such as through fit or other variables, to understand the levers causing the observed effectiveness of PEOs in persistence for URM students. To address these gaps and complement earlier work, we investigate how different social locations of social capital (i.e., network-based, participatory) offer varying forms of social capital (i.e., instrumental, expressive) that can influence fit to impact persistence across groups.

Methods

Participants

We interviewed a subsample of the 2,186 engineering students who were first-year students in 2014 and who completed a survey as part of our larger longitudinal research project (see Skvoretz et al., 2020 for a description of the larger survey project). To recruit the 55 women and URM students we ultimately interviewed, we contacted students from five of the 11 universities who participated in our research. The five universities included three Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs), one Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI), and one Historically Black College/University (HBCU). We selected these universities because they represented a mix of students and contexts. In Puccia et al. (2021) we describe processes through which we determined which survey participants we would recruit for interviews; briefly, we contacted students with higher and lower levels of social capital based on their first completed survey.

A total of 55 students agreed to be interviewed. Thirty-two interviewees participated in PEOs, of them, 12 participated in NSBE, six in SHPE, and eight in SWE. Students' participation in PEOs was not a selection criterion. Interviewees included women of any racial/ethnic grouping as well as URM men. Their demographics were Latinx (15 men, three women), Black (11 men, six women), White (0 men, 14 women), Middle Eastern (3 men, 0 women), and other ethnicity/race (2 men, one woman). Forty-two of the interviewees were from the three PWIs, eight from the HSI, and five from the HBCU. Interviews were conducted during 2015, when participants were either finishing their first year or entering the second year of their engineering program. Interviewee characteristics, including PEO participation, are shown in Table 1.

TABLE 1. PEO participation and participant characteristics of interviewees ( n = 55).

Interview Protocol

Our semi-structured interview protocol was designed to answer our research questions about how CMES and social capital affect students' persistence in their engineering programs. Interview protocols were customized to each participant using their earlier survey responses about their alters. For example, we asked how people they identified on the previous survey (see Skvoretz et al., 2020) contributed to their persistence in engineering, and whether students followed advice from these mentors and how that advice helped them in engineering. We also asked students how they fit into their programs, given their gender and racial/ethnic identities. The students were additionally directly asked whether they participated in professional societies and, if so, why they did or did not participate in them. We similarly asked students about the actions they had taken to be successful engineering majors. These items and additional probes yielded responses from students in which they described participating in PEOs and how it affected them. We asked participants to share examples during the interviews and used "tell me more" prompts to increase the amount of detail elicited ( Bernard, 2011). Items from the interview guide included the following:

(1) Can you give me an example of something that [the person they identified on their survey] said or did that influenced you during your first year as an engineering undergraduate?

(a) How did you act on this advice?

(b) How did this advice contribute to you remaining an engineering major?

(2) As a [insert their self identifications from the survey], tell me how you fit into your engineering department.

(3) Do you participate in any: study groups, research, communication with professors (e.g. office hours, networking), internships, or professional societies/organizations?

(a) Why or why not?

(4) What have you done in college to be a successful engineering major?

Two Black women and one white woman conducted the interviews. If possible, we matched participants with interviewers of the same race/ethnicity as the participant. This study was conducted following protocols approved by the University of South Florida Instructional Review Board, including gaining signed informed consent from participants. Interviews lasted 1 hour or less, and most were conducted in person on campus. However, seven were conducted via videoconference for students unable to meet in person. Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Participants received a $25 Amazon gift card for their time.

Data Analysis

We used thematic analysis to find themes in the interview data based on previous research, patterns that emerged, and the data's relationship to the key components of the research questions ( Braun and Clarke, 2006). A codebook was developed with primary and sub-codes using the literature on fit and social capital and the interview guides. After independently reviewing the interview transcripts, five members of the research team engaged in a group discussion to achieve consensus about the codes and their definitions. We refined the codebook through several iterations and discussions, and established intercoder reliability (both described in detail in Puccia et al., 2021). Two team members coded the 55 interviews, and another team member entered the codes into the program QSR NVivo 11.0. These steps above comprise the first phase through which this data was analyzed wherein all interviewee comments about professional societies were organized during the coding process into one code, "Participated or did not participate in professional societies." Before we commenced with coding, the team agreed to apply this code to any salient mentioning of societies, and then further analyses would be undertaken to tease out additional trends.

Two research team members undertook the second phase of coding. They first read through all the interview data excerpts to which the "Participated or did not participate in professional societies" code had been applied. They then grouped these excerpts based on the frequency of occurrence, keyness to the research questions, or in relation to the reviewed literature, which resulted in the following preliminary themes emerging at this stage:

* Benefits of joining PEOs

○ Skills and collaborative benefits of getting involved (gaining experience, responsibility, leadership, etc.)

○ Knowledge benefits from PEO events, conferences, and learning from members

○ Networking and connection benefits

○ Job and professional advantages (e.g., getting an internship or job, having professional and career security and success)

* Reasons to join

○ Reputation of PEOs

○ PEOs helping with certification

* Participation, how people got involved in PEOs

* Barriers to participation in PEOs

○ Time constrains, conflict in schedules, other priorities

○ Readiness to be involved

○ Finances, cost

○ Did not take societies seriously or believe they were helpful (i.e., already had an internship)

○ Lack of interest or willingness to get involved, skepticism

○ Student perception that they would not be welcome at the PEO

* Things to do to be a successful engineering major (e.g., time management, studying, sleeping enough, working hard, scheduling, balancing work with pleasure, joining a PEO)

* Fit in engineering and in PEOs

○ Sense of belonging

○ Diversity

* Relationships with others

○ Mentor/mentee programs

Afterward, in the third phase, one of these two team members and a different team member further organized the data grouped in these above themes. In this phase, the researchers compared our current findings to the results of previous studies utilizing the same population and from which the participants of this study were selected ( Puccia et al., 2021; Smith et al., 2021). In Smith et al. (2021), we performed inferential analyses on the larger pool of the 2,186 survey respondents and found that race/ethnicity-focused PEOs improve engineering persistence for URM students. We were also able to determine the types of social capital provided by these PEOs by thematically analyzing open-ended survey data. These types of social capital guided the final phase of data analysis for the present article and include the following types:

(1) "academic and social integration through academic support, such as developing time management skills and tutoring, as well as social networking, such as meeting other students and engineers of color some of whom become friends and mentors;

(2) connecting with industry internships and employment opportunities through attendance at national conferences; and

(3) professional resources for career development such as improving leadership skills, resume writing, and interview skills." ( Smith et al., 2021, p. 8)

In Puccia et al. (2021), we analyzed the same 55 interviews as in the present study, highlighting the instrumental (e.g., direct advice about accessing resources and strategies) and expressive (e.g., emotional support) social capital provided by parents. In this study, we drew upon the operational definition of expressive social capital for engineering students ( Puccia et al., 2021), to identify themes focusing on how PEOs and alters provided emotional support through various mechanisms to help students persist in engineering, which are presented in the findings section.

In sum, because we recruited interview participants from the same pool of 2,186 survey participants described in Smith et al. (2021), our analysis sought to add nuance to previous findings and buttress the transferability of the findings from Puccia et al. (2021). Thus during analysis, we prioritized instances related to how PEOs enable students to network, how PEOs reduce isolation related to gender and race/ethnicity, and how PEOs provide access to professional and emotionally supportive resources, because such instances were identified as important in Smith et al. (2021). We then related these explanations to the notion of instrumental and expressive social capital identified in Puccia et al. (2021).

Results

Regarding the fit domain of CMES (the first research question), we found that PEOs provided 1) expressive social capital, wherein students felt they belonged, primarily because they saw others like themselves in large numbers, and 2) instrumental social capital, wherein students gained valuable academic and professional skills, indirectly promoting their feelings of belonging in engineering. First, students discussed how PEOs provided a sense of community and allowed them to be around others like themselves and see them succeed in engineering. This provided students "a family" with whom to talk about a "shared struggle." Students' feelings of fit were further increased as they established friendships and gained validation from their PEO. Second, PEOs provided students with instrumental social capital, including academic support and access to internships and employment by building professional networks, often with people like themselves. Students also developed leadership and time management skills through experiences in their PEOs.

Regarding our second research question, students provided three common reasons for joining PEOs. First, they were encouraged to do so by teachers, mentors, peers, and others in their social network. Second, they desired to join a community of people from the same racial/ethnic background. Third, they were motivated by opportunities to network with professional engineers and peers. In particular, connecting with homophilous alters was crucial reason why students wanted to join PEOs, and race/ethnicity-focused PEOs are a good source of them for URM students. Finally, students also recounted obstacles that inhibited them from joining or fully participating in PEOs. These included time constraints and scheduling conflicts, financial concerns, or a lack of fit.

Expressive Social Capital: Community and Seeing Other People Like Yourself in Engineering

The main expressive social capital finding related to how:

* Participation in PEOs provided women and URM students access to (often homophilous) others from whom they received expressive social capital that aided them in fitting in their engineering program.

Women- and race/ethnicity-focused PEOs allowed student members to be around others in engineering like themselves, which improved their fit as they navigated the field of engineering, a field traditionally dominated by white men. Specifically, alters students met through PEOs helped them feel like they were part of a community of people with whom they could discuss their struggles and find solutions to obstacles. In addition, being around others with similar characteristics aided students in making sense of the negative treatment they received from others. Ultimately, these homophilous alters helped students feel they belonged in engineering.

Women, particularly women who were not Black, identified SWE as a common source of support. For example, a Latinx woman at a PWI expressed that engineering is a field dominated by men and that joining SWE made it "a little bit more inclusive" for her:

SWE makes engineering a lot smaller. It makes it easier to relate to all these people and be able to understand the things that you're going through and understand the struggles that even women feel in this kind of area.

Likewise, when asked if the resources provided by SWE offered a sense of camaraderie, a white woman at a PWI discussed the PEO's newsletter.

Yeah, definitely. They do also send out a newsletter about a prominent woman engineering in the world, and they give a backstory on her and sometimes they'll mention other engineers here at my university.

When asked a follow-up question about whether that newsletter helped her feel like she fit in or had a more established place as a woman in engineering, the woman agreed:

I think, yeah, a more established place as a woman in engineering. Especially as the years progress and women in STEM programs becomes more prominent, I definitely think that's how I feel. Maybe not necessarily like, 'Oh I fit in,' but it's like, 'I belong here whether other people [see that or not].'

Women who did not participate in SWE for various reasons, such as already participating in gender-focused opportunities or not "being into clubs," also acknowledged that SWE often benefits its members. For instance, a white woman at a PWI acknowledged that other women may feel encouraged by such societies, "I don't think that I could be a part of another all-female thing [in addition to my Women in Science and Engineering learning community], but I know that it's encouraging for [them]." Likewise, a white woman at a PWI shared that she had not participated in SWE much because "she is not into clubs" but she thinks that joining a club is beneficial for other students who need support. She said, being in PEOs "could be helpful if you're struggling being a woman [in engineering], ... if you're struggling with coping and being in college."

URM students, particularly Black students, noted the importance of joining a race/ethnicity-focused organization. For example, when asked about the role that NSBE has played in her experience in her engineering program, a Black woman attending a PWI described the PEO's essential role in securing her fit:

Oh my gosh, huge role . . . just having that family, that community, that support system is, it's almost essential. NSBE has given me mentors, role models, encouragement.

Likewise, a Black woman at a PWI said NSBE is "like a family" in a way that "just blends well," and she enjoyed making shared memories with NSBE peers.

Other Black students talked at length about their attraction to NSBE because it was specifically inclusive of Black engineers. For example, a Black woman at a PWI shared:

I feel like I fit well ... especially because there aren't a lot of black people at all in engineering so when I see, at least at the NSBE meetings, when you see all the people that are doing it, it definitely is like, 'Okay there's other people just like me doing it'.

Further discussing how seeing other Black students succeeding in engineering creates a feeling of fitting into engineering and pride in being one of those students, a Black woman attending a PWI described her perceptions of NSBE. NSBE conferences and events provided a sense of "comfort." She shared:

The people that you meet, the amount of people that you meet at [the] conference [...] When you go to [the] conference it's National Society of Black Engineers, it's mainly Black engineers. And it's nice to see how many are really pursuing the same major, the same field actually, so that's comforting. And because there's not many of us, that's the main reason why [you participate], to see more of you pursuing what you do.

A Black man at a PWI specifically connected his participation in NSBE to his fit, noting that "there's even a society, a whole society of Black engineers, so I think we fit in pretty well [in my department]." Although a less pronounced theme, Latinx students connected participation to SHPE to feelings of inclusion as well.

Sometimes it's a little weird [in my engineering department], but there's organizations like SHPE and fraternity where I don't feel so alone. Compared to high school, I had more Hispanic friends, and here I don't have many ... Sometimes I just don't know if it's being homesick or missing talking Spanish or something, it feels a little off, I guess.

Together, these excerpts highlight how gender- and race/ethnicity-focused PEOs helped students fit into engineering, and how they were particularly helpful in white women's and Black students' fit. These PEOs are designed intentionally to serve people of specific groups who have shared experiences based on their gender, racial, and ethnic identities.

Instrumental Social Capital: Academic and Professional Knowledge and Networking

In their interviews, students discussed what they thought it took to be a successful engineering student and how their PEOs supported them in that endeavor. The main instrumental social capital findings related to:

* Alters met through PEOs helped students develop time management skills, which is crucial in excelling academically.

* PEOs provided mentoring opportunities where students were coached on what to expect, encouraged, and provided access to resources, such as study groups.

* PEOs provided students with socialization experiences, including practicing a range of professional skills, like communication norms and leadership opportunities.

* PEOs sponsored networking activities that provided access to people that could be useful in a student's career path later or academic path now.

* PEO events, such as conferences and job fairs, where employers actively sought students to hire, directly aided students' current career development.

In discussing how PEOs helped them manage their time, participants shared how alters met in PEOs helped them learn how to make time to support a healthy balance between self-care, school efforts, and participating in other activities. For example, a Black woman at a PWI shared that NSBE's mission included three components: "excelling academically, succeeding professionally, and positively impacting the community." The student described how she brings those three components into her life as she manages her various responsibilities and roles:

I get better every year, especially with time management ... I make sure I get sleep because that's really important. I lay off coffee. I talk to my teachers, my professors-the relationships with them-I go to office hours, I make that extra effort to make sure that I'm not behind in classes. I get tutoring. I tutor unofficially in the community with NSBE, just volunteering there and I'm a mentor now.

These skills of taking care of oneself and being one's best academically are important for persisting in a challenging major. However, developing skills like time management can be difficult. Therefore, the PEOs encouraged students to practice managing their responsibilities.

Integrating instrumental and expressive social capital, a specific aspect of PEO programming that supported the development of academic skills occurred through mentoring programs. Many PEOs offer mentor programs in which a student who is further along in their program is paired with a student in the early stages of their program. For example, a white woman at a PWI described how her mentor from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers provided encouragement regarding her classes:

He helped me see what was coming the next semester because he'd already been through it ... He knew the struggle. So just being able to talk to him about it and [him] being like, 'Oh, well this class is going to be really difficult, but you can do it because I did it ... He was more someone that I could talk to about the struggle that is chemical engineering just because he'd already been through it.

Likewise, a white woman at a PWI stated that being part of PEOs and having a study group working on particularly difficult academic tasks are essential to be a successful engineering student. She shared:

I've joined the study groups, ... [in my fraternity] it gathers all these biomedical engineers together and it gives you the older people that have had a lot more experience in these classes that I'm taking now or have experience with internships and jobs and things like that. They have a lot of really good advice to give to us younger kids, I guess I'm an upperclassman [now] technically, but like, I still feel like they can teach me so much. So having that has been like a really valuable resource too.

Similarly, a white woman at a PWI described her experience learning over time. She said:

I didn't recognize how important being in organizations, forming study groups, and getting leadership positions was. I didn't recognize how important it was to work with other students to pass your classes and plan an event for your club, so I wasn't in a lot of organizations. When I came here, I joined and it's a really good support system.

In addition to academic knowledge and skills, participating in PEOs provided students with socialization experiences tied to developing professional skills relating to norms of communication, appearance, and leadership. For example, a Latinx man at a PWI described his experience in SHPE developing a range of professional skills:

We do everything from professional workshops to social events. You want to get the club members interacting with each other, but you also want to do professional workshops. Like we have conference ... So we held a conference readiness workshop beforehand on how to introduce yourself to someone, how to approach someone, what to have your resume look like, how to dress, how to present yourself, what to talk about, what not to talk about, how to act throughout the conference. So that's professionalism, interview workshops, all sorts of things like that.

In another instance, a Black man at a PWI discussed how being the publications chair of his NSBE chapter provided leadership practice that would help him in his future career. He said:

It's a great experience, it gets me experience being a leader and a servant leader ... For me, being a servant leader is important because I want to do project management when I go in the workforce. So being a leader and understanding everybody's different gifts and being a servant to them and also leading them is something I believe in doing ... so I want to build myself up for that.

For a Black man at a PWI, his role as a leader in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers impressed potential employers. He reflected:

I'm taking on more leadership roles than most people in my field. I've talked to employers at career fairs and events hosted by ASME. They tell me, 'Oh wow, you've done a lot in your early years.' I'm like, 'Yeah, I thought that's what you're supposed to do.' He told me, 'Oh no, not a lot of people actually do that.' So, I'm standing there, 'Oh, okay. I guess I'm ahead of the game right now, that helps me stick out.'

Likewise, a Latinx man at an HSI mentioned "moving up" in SHPE to become a regional leader and developing a campaign to get elected. Similarly, a Black man at HSI described how the Society of Automotive Engineers "decided that I was fit to be a leader already" despite starting "off knowing nothing about cars."

Students built professional relationships through PEO-sanctioned networking activities helpful in their later career and current academic path. Connecting with professional engineers provided students access to career opportunities and advice. For example, a Black woman at a PWI shared that through NSBE, students "go to networking events, talk to company representatives and hand out their resume." Likewise, a white woman at a PWI described:

SWE definitely does offer a lot of resources and they do offer networking sessions for the community or the society. They give us a lot of heads up about events happening on campus, so that's beneficial.

Similarly, a Black woman at a PWI benefitted from NSBE without attending every event. She said:

Even last year when I wasn't going to every NSBE meeting necessarily, I still got emails about the corporate events, so I'd go to those ... It's honestly when I have time ... Right now, there's a lot of random events, you can just kind of go to whatever, but networking-whenever there's a company I'm interested in I'll go.

In another example, a Black man at an HBCU mentioned that attending NSBE meetings was helpful. When asked to explain how it was helpful, he identified that it facilitates his communication with various organizations beneficial to his persistence in his engineering program. He especially highlighted the role of NSBE in supporting him in this regard with people who were similar to himself:

I mean, it's networking skills. It's a bunch of other engineers that are also Black as well, [in the] same boat, go to my university, so that's how it's helpful. You can network very well, and just because you're in the same major as them, they're willing to help you. They're like, 'Oh c'mon, you need help with computing? Come here.'

In sum, PEOs created opportunities for women and URM students to network with professional engineers, often of the same gender or race/ethnicity, which enabled professional relationships supporting fit to form.

Participating in PEOs provided access to opportunities and experiences that aid in imminent career development, such as allowing students to meet professionals and potential employers who were hiring or seeking interns. For instance, a Black woman at an HBCU, who was the treasurer of her university's NSBE chapter, stated that participating in such clubs gave her access to internships and networking opportunities:

I cannot stress enough sources, sources, getting involved. If you get involved in a lot of the engineering clubs, those help a lot because you can get internships, you can talk to corporate people. If you go to the fairs too, you can talk to jobs and they'll help you too.

Students felt confident that their PEO would help them land a good job. For example, a Latinx man at a PWI described his experience with SHPE:

All these kids ... now they work for major companies-Exxon, Goldman Sachs, Lockheed Martin. Every single person in SHPE got a job ... They knew what to do, they knew how to play the game, they knew what you had to do to get through, to get by and they had the best advice to give in my opinion. It's thanks to them, thanks to SHPE, thanks to my friend introducing me to SHPE, that's what's made the difference.

A Latinx man at a PWI also discussed the benefits of SHPE and ASME in employment. He said:

A lot of my friends who have gone to SHPE, [American] Society of Mechanical Engineers meetings, they've had opportunities to tour the local beer factory, study how machines work at the local theme park ... so if you go to SHPE you have a higher chance. I mainly went to SHPE for local meetings and just having my name out there.

In another example, a Black woman at a PWI shared, "I received 90% of my internship offers because of NSBE ... Through conferences and networking with the people there." In addition to networking to land job interviews, a white woman at a PWI discussed how her PEO mentor recommended an internship and provided support during the interview process.

I signed up for the mentor/mentee program through AIChE, and my mentor actually had the internship before me. He had quit because he was entering his senior year, it was just too much. They were like, 'Well do you have any friends who would like this internship?' And he's just like, 'Well, my mentee would really like this internship', and so I just had to send my resume and then they hired me.

These examples show the range of instrumental social capital, which intersects with expressive social capital, gleaned from participating in PEOs.

The Main Reasons for Joining PEOs Were Expressive: Encouragement From Others and Wanting to be Around People Like Oneself

The two main reasons students offered for why they joined PEOs include:

* They were encouraged to do so by alters.

* They wanted to join to be around people like themselves, particularly people who were similar to them racially.

First, students learned about and received recommendations to join PEOs from teachers, parents, friends, professors, mentors, resident advisers in engineering living-learning communities, and alters in a range of other settings, including classes, festivals, career fairs, and other events for first-year engineer students. For instance, a Black woman at a PWI said, "A former student advised me to join NSBE ... and then I did. And then it was just it's like a family, so I like it." A Latinx woman at a PWI also shared how her mentor encouraged her to get involved in discipline- and gender-focused societies, saying, "She's a civil engineer and I'm a civil engineer, so she was influencing me to join American Society of Civil Engineers, join SWE. I've acted on her advice." A white woman at a PWI discussed the major role of her resident adviser and of her engineering living-learning community in general in her awareness and involvement in PEOs:

We had a mentor and an RA that were both experienced engineering students, so they told us about every single organization and what they did and what their purpose was so that's where I heard about most of them. They also had an event at the beginning of the year where all of the organizations came to our floor and talked to us.

Second, in addition to identifying the advice of others to join PEOs, URM students were drawn to join race/ethnicity-focused PEOs, such as NSBE, because they offered a cohort of similar students with whom a student could experience the engineering program. Many students wanted to join because of the importance of seeing people "like themselves" succeed, which made them feel empowered in their studies and career and feel that they fit. For instance, a Black man at a PWI joined NSBE during his freshman year when he wanted to be part of a community of Black engineers. He described his experience:

It's [my experience in NSBE that's] cool. I wanted to get in extra-curricular groups and just have a well-rounded college experience because I just didn't want to be in the books. So, I joined NSBE because its National Society of Black Engineers, and so they're engineers that are Black and just like me and going through the same struggles. I like just going to those meetings, and then also being a part of an officer position.

When comparing NSBE and SWE in terms of effectiveness of their outreach to students, a Black woman at a PWI discussed how her Black and white friends might choose a PEO based on such criteria as having "people like me", field focus, or availability of scholarships. She shared:

I think some people just do NSBE, but my Black friends are all in NSBE. My white friends, I have one who's in a business frat because she just wants to do business, but then some of them are in SWE. So, I think you should have one engineering thing, at least that you're in. I might do SWE, I know SWE had scholarships that I haven't looked at and SWE since it's all women, I think it has a little bigger reach.

These excerpts highlight how a student's identity and the need to seek others with similar identities encouraged students' participation in PEOs.

Reasons for Not Joining PEOs: Lack of Time, Money, or Fit

Most students who did not participate in PEOs expressed an interest in participating, but often offered one of three main reasons for not joining a PEO:

* Students had an already packed schedule full of classes, commute time, or a job.

* The cost of dues was too high.

* Students were concerned that they would not fit in at the PEO because they did not yet have enough engineering knowledge or the environment may not have been welcoming.

The main time-related obstacles to participating in PEOs mentioned included course load, commuting, or having a job. For instance, when discussing how his academic workload prevented him from joining PEOs, a Latinx man at a PWI shared, "My sophomore year, I was focused on research and classes. There's not enough time in the day to do everything." Similarly, a Latinx man at an HSI was not able to add any PEOs to his schedule, despite being interested in them. He shared:

There are a lot of clubs. There was a fair here last month ... with a lot of engineering clubs. A lot seemed really interesting ... But because I was taking a lot of higher level classes, I didn't want to get into them because I was already pretty swamped studying.

Similarly, a Black man at an HBCU prioritized studying over attending PEO meetings: "Nothing against them, don't get me wrong. They're helpful and all. It's just ... I'm not going to go to every single meeting because I could be studying during that meeting." Further, a Latinx man at a PWI described that his classes coincided with the meeting times. He said:

SHPE helps, [but] I don't go to their meetings often enough because I usually take calculus at night ... SHPE meetings, nine out of ten times, will be during those class times. The professor's office hours fall at the same time, too. I would go to four SHPE meetings out of fifteen because those are the meetings that work with my schedule.

Commuting compounded the issue of having limited time. A Latinx man at a PWI stated:

I didn't really go to any meetings last year, especially since I commute 30 minutes a day ... Sometimes their meetings are at night and my classes are during the day, so I leave campus and then I don't really feel like driving all the way back, it's a long drive.

Similarly, a white woman at a PWI was limited in her ability to participate in SWE's activities because of the distance between the campus location where classes were held and where SWE holds its activities and events. She explained:

I'm part of SWE. I haven't participated too much with them because their meetings are every other week on Wednesday at seven ... Since the engineering campus is off campus, it was always too much to go to my car and drive there.

Students who hold jobs while going to school have an additional time constraint. For example, a Latinx man at an HSI discussed how it was tough for him to be a successful engineering student because he worked part-time in a warehouse since he began his studies 2 years ago. He discussed how his day was already full:

I don't have time to be in a clubs because I have a job. Since my job takes a good chunk of my day, I can't spend a lot on anything else other than the three core things: going to school in the morning, working in the afternoon, and studying at night.

Other students were in a similar situation. A white woman at a PWI is not a member of any clubs "because I work as well as I'm taking a lot of credits in the semester, so I didn't think that I would have time to spend at the societies, but I will be doing that in the fall." Similarly, a Black man at a PWI explained that his lack of involvement was due to having an internship in his first year of college.

Financial reasons influenced students' decisions to join a PEO. A Latinx woman at a PWI noted that whether she joins SHPE or not "depends on how much I can work and how much my mom can work as well." A white woman at a PWI explained that the cost associated with being a PEO member made her think about how many hours of work she would need to afford it. Further, a white woman at a PWI shared, "I did actually go to a meeting at SWE, and then I didn't want to pay national dues."

In addition, students' desire to participate in PEOs were influenced by their feelings of fit. Some students were concerned about whether they were ready to join PEOs given their knowledge and experience in engineering. For example, a man identifying as 'other' race or ethnicity (specifically, Chinese and Nicaraguan) at an HSI said that he was not interested in joining PEOs "because I still don't feel like I have the skills to really be in there. I haven't completed that many classes." When discussing her interest in joining a PEO, a Latinx woman at a PWI had similar views and assessment of her knowledge and readiness to be a member of a PEO. She explained:

I probably will join junior or senior year. Right now, I don't know that much about engineering. But once I can actually start more engineering-based classes, then maybe I will feel more like into being into the club and 'Oh, I can help in this club.'

A Latinx man at an HSI similarly remembered his first visit to one of the organizations and not being able to absorb the content:

I don't recall much of it because my mind wasn't ready to learn. My interest was not in what they were saying, so it just went right over my head. I didn't absorb everything, my mind was closed at the time.

In other cases, prospective PEO members, at times, did not feel like they fit into the PEO due to their intersectional identities (i.e., being a URM student in SWE, being a light-skinned Latinx student in SHPE). For example, for a Latinx woman at a PWI, SWE felt competitive and she did not feel included:

I haven't been as involved as I want to be in SWE, but SWE is kind of just a huge seminar body with all these women in it. We kind of just talk about struggles and like things like that ... I don't know, whenever I went to a SWE thing, I didn't feel as included as when I went to like other things. I haven't felt that ... I feel like a lot of the women, they're very competitive compared to men, which is really interesting.

A Latinx man at a PWI did not join SHPE because he felt he might have to perform Latinidad in a particular way given his intersectional identities (i.e., a Puerto Rican with blue eyes who speaks "unaccented" English).

So, my family's very Puerto Rican ... but I mean I have no accent ... I don't look Puerto Rican, I have blue eyes ... I'm not a member of any societies, I've considered joining but I don't really - I mean I see the usefulness for a lot of people, it's not something that I want to do. Like even though, SHPE, even though I consider myself Hispanic, I feel uncomfortable in groups like that.

These remarks show the factors that impacted student participation in PEOs and their ability to reap the benefits associated with PEO participation.

Discussion

In sum, previous research revealed positive impacts of joining PEOs, reporting that not joining a race/ethnicity-focused PEO is associated with a decreased likelihood of continuing in an engineering major for URM students ( Smith et al., 2021). Yet, the specific levers through which PEOs, as participatory social capital, may promote fit and reduce isolation were not entirely clear compared to the more clearly identified levers of network-based alters who can provide warnings of discrimination to promote fit ( Campbell-Montalvo et al., 2021). Therefore, this study's primary goal was to understand better the mechanisms through which participation in PEOs affects persistence, focusing specifically on the CMES domain of fit. We highlighted how PEOs affect persistence mainly through expressive social capital that supported improved feelings of fit, like when students saw many people like themselves doing engineering. We also found that the provision of instrumental social capital was particularly well received by women and URM students in women-focused and race/ethnicity-focused PEOs because it was provided by homophilous alters ( Brown and Josephs, 1999; Morganson et al., 2010; Borum and Walker, 2011; Evans et al., 2011; Joseph et al., 2017; Campbell-Montalvo et al., 2021; Leyva et al., 2021). In short, this study reveals how students become connected to PEOs, and how PEOs provided students access to instrumental and expressive social capital delivered by people with similar characteristics that affected fit consequential in persistence.

This study focused on students' CMES (i.e., their notions of what they needed to do to be successful as engineering students, including feeling that they fit) and highlighted their agency in locating and accessing resources (i.e., PEOs and the people in them) needed to enhance their feelings of fit. PEOs, particularly gender- and race/ethnicity-focused PEOs, have as part of their mission a goal to help students fit in and build their academic and professional capabilities to promote their success in STEM. What is particularly powerful about gender- and race/ethnicity PEOs is their acknowledgment that the STEM environment can be unwelcoming for women and URM students, and that participation in a supportive community can mitigate that feeling. We conclude that within the context of incongruities between women and URM students' CMES and institutional culture ( Smith et al., 2015), PEOs play a vital role in encouraging students' persistence in engineering through expressive social capital affecting feelings of fit.

Because women and URM students encounter a less welcoming environment and see fewer people like themselves, expressive social capital provided by race/ethnicity-focused and women-focused PEOs provides added value because it provides access to homophilous alters who are successful in engineering. Engaging with homophilous alters with whom they could learn, discuss struggles, and share common experiences positively influenced students' feelings of fit. Obtaining social capital from homophilous alters was most beneficial because of the shared identities, perspectives, and comfort/trust between the ego and alter. This finding reinforces results from previous studies that highlight the importance of students having alters with whom they can consult when they experience difficulty in their engineering programs ( Weston, 2019). These alters help students name and resist processes of marginalization ( Secules et al., 2018; Campbell-Montalvo et al., 2021).

PEOs also provide instrumental social capital, including academic and professional skills, networking, and knowledge development opportunities. They help students develop professionalization skills and gain awareness of disciplinary norms (e.g., how to talk, dress, or engage in ways accepted in the field). We acknowledge that foundations of disciplinary norms are grounded in the values of majority groups, and these norms and values are often assumed to be neutral ( McGee, 2020). However, efforts should be made to address how institutional norms are often rooted in the values of majority groups. While STEM culture will not be changed overnight, making information about disciplinary norms explicit informs students and permits them to be more knowledgeable about actions that can be taken to impact how others perceive them, contributing to their feelings of fit and potentially leading to engineering persistence. Although industry- and discipline-based PEOs are valuable sources of instrumental social capital, we highlight how social capital provided by homophilous alters in women-focused and race/ethnicity-focused PEOs interacts with the academic climate and nature of inequality experienced by women and URM students.

Although participatory social capital may comprise less direct social relations between students and alters than the relationships established between students and alters in network-based social capital, it may accomplish similar outcomes, especially for marginalized students when they are receiving it from people like themselves. We found that participatory social capital helped women and URM students make sense of the treatment they received from others and improved their feelings of fit. We posit this social capital is especially beneficial for Black students. Indeed, it is likely that the higher rates of NSBE participation ( Smith et al., 2021) are connected to the more pronounced threats to fit experienced by Black students ( Campbell-Montalvo et al., 2021). Black students' increased tendency to seek assistance helpful in fit can be understood given STEM's anti-Blackness ( Bullock, 2017; Cedillo, 2018; Martin et al., 2019; Vakil and Ayers, 2019; Nxumalo and Gitari, 2021).

Skvoretz et al. (2020) reported that students from various ethnic/racial groups enter their engineering programs with differing levels of social capital. Further, Blosser (2020) highlighted the role of initial social capital in developing more social capital useful in STEM success. We showed the crucial role of homophilous alters in students' persistence and acquisition of additional capital. Given the limited number of women and URM in engineering departments, the reactions to students' intersectional identities that can make it difficult for them to access capital open to some of their identities, and the differential treatment marginalized students may experience, it is vital to address existing gaps in social capital. If these gaps are not filled, students may be less likely to benefit from advice to take advantage of available resources such as PEOs, despite evidence that women and URM students will more often experience stereotype threats than their majority peers. Our study revealed that students joined PEOs because they were encouraged to do so and desired to be around people who were like themselves. However, some students could not take advantage of these opportunities because of obstacles that need to be addressed, such as inconvenient meeting times and the cost of dues.

Implications for Institutions

Results from this study offer insights to augment university and engineering degree program efforts to attract and retain women and URM engineering students, particularly by harnessing PEOs to help support them and provide development opportunities. PEOs are a vital part of university efforts to broaden participation in STEM. In particular, universities should consider how PEOs can bolster or supplement engineering programs. Because of their impacts on students, universities and departments are encouraged to increase their relationships with PEOs and support student engagement in them. Increasing students' access to PEOs is paramount. To be inclusive, universities should attend to potential barriers to participation, such as when and where meetings and events occur and how to provide nontraditional and commuter students access. Additionally, departments can consider ways to reduce financial barriers to participation, such as covering the cost of students' dues.

Other strategies can be addressed programmatically. Programs such as engineering bridge programs, design teams, PEOs, and other valuable opportunities for students to build social capital and improve feelings of fit should be widely available and accessible ( Campbell-Montalvo et al., 2021). Additionally, departments can encourage students to engage with PEOs by requiring them to explore their benefits by attending a few meetings, including exploring race/ethnicity- or gender-based PEOs as appropriate. Such experiences can provide students insights about resources and role models early on in their programs. Because we found that alters influence participation in PEOs, advisors in engineering programs can play a pivotal role in encouraging students, particularly students of color, to participate in PEOs. Students should be encouraged to participate early (e.g., first semester) to benefit from access to such resources fully. Our study also revealed that students benefit when they have access to homophilous alters. This reinforces the need to have a diverse engineering faculty that includes professors and advisors who are women and/or people of color.

Data from this study showed that PEOs might not be equally welcoming to all students, whether because students feel they lack engineering content knowledge or are concerned that they will not fit into the society. Professional societies can use this information to support changes in organizational culture and help make their programming more accessible ( Campbell-Montalvo et al., 2020). We suggest that PEOs consider implementing an assessment and improvements of their programming as needed with an eye on diversity, equity, and inclusion ( Peters et al., 2021).

Implications for Research

While this study advanced understandings about how PEOs affect engineering persistence, additional research is still needed. For example, students' pre-college socioeconomic backgrounds may be an important factor to consider in their PEO participation. Previous research has shown that Black and Latinx students' pre-college experiences may influence their ability to integrate into engineering programs at PWIs ( Johnson, 2019). Indeed, such experiences could have influenced why students in our study participated in PEOs and in which PEOs they chose to participate. Although our sample included students enrolled in different types of university contexts (e.g., PWIs, an HBCU, and an HSI), we did not address the role of university context in this study. However, we found that Latinx students talked far less about the benefits of participation in PEOs. It might be that Latinx students in our sample, particularly Latinx men, had higher rates of fit in their engineering degree programs, particularly if enrolled at an HSI ( Campbell-Montalvo et al., 2021). Although we assert that PEOs are valuable for helping marginalized students fit into engineering programs, additional research is needed to undercover the influence of various university settings (e.g., HSIs and HBCUs with students from a range of racial/ethnic groups) on several factors including pre-engineering fit and social capital.

Campbell-Montalvo et al. (2021) showed that network-based alters, who are arguably more well known to students and have potentially closer social proximity, offered more personal advice about students' identities and how others would react to them. In the current study, participatory social capital improved fit by making role models accessible, allowing students to see people of similar characteristics achieving, permitting them to engage in discussions about engineering obstacles and how to overcome them, and helping them to receive professional and academic advice. Collectively, both network-based and participatory social capital are crucial for students' fit, and offer complementary resources helpful in STEM persistence. As noted in Johnson (2019), additional research is needed to determine the extent to which these findings are patterned in engineering and STEM, and how these types of social capital and CMES articulate for particular students. For instance, can having lower levels of network-based social capital be mitigated by participatory social capital? Does this differ across gender and ethnic/racial groups? What is the relationship among the varying levels of fit, types of social capital (network-based, participatory), and other forms of social capital (instrumental, expressive), and how do these relationships affect persistence? How do differences in fit and social capital within and between groups' pre-college experiences affect persistence?

Additionally, studies are needed that disaggregate data within categories, including those that disaggregate within URM categories and offer intersectional analyses for women of color. For example, Smith et al. (2021) found that URM students participate in PEOs at different rates-Black students participate in NSBE at higher rates than women in SWE and Latinx students in SHPE. So, conducting analyses that combine students from the various demographic groups may hide important differences. Similarly, we found that network-based alters ( Campbell-Montalvo et al., 2021) and participatory social capital (i.e., participation in NSBE) played an important role in Black student persistence in engineering ( Smith et al., 2021). Considered together, these findings suggest that using the URM as an all-encompassing category may obfuscate results, particularly as they relate to Black students, and reduce the efficacy of recommendations to support broader STEM participation. Likewise, other research reveals the challenges of using Asian as an umbrella category. For example, Kang et al. (2021) noted that such practices contribute to the gross underrepresentation of southeast Asian students, such as Filipino, Hmong, Cambodian, and additional students.

Our finding related to influences on students' decision to participate in PEOs raises additional questions. For example, do the sources of advice to join particular PEOs differ across gender and ethnic/racial groups? How does the availability of alters (including whether they are homophilous) affect the receipt of such advice (see Johnson, 2019)? Answers to such questions can provide insights about social processes, including how the entry social capital of Black students interested in STEM affects their ongoing acquisition of social capital and its influence on fit, and persistence. A focus on Black students is warranted given their low representation in STEM, especially compared to other groups (i.e., women, Latinx students), and existing societal and STEM notions of anti-Blackness. Answering these additional questions could be valuable in informing theory and practices relating to STEM persistence across groups.

Data Availability Statement

The datasets presented in this article are not readily available because of the need to preserve participant confidentiality. Requests to access the datasets should be directed to rebecca.campbell@uconn.edu.

Ethics Statement

This study involving human participants was reviewed and approved by the University of South Florida Institutional Review Board. The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Author Contributions

RC-M and CS conducted the interviews in this research. RC-M, GK, CS, EP, and JM developed the interview analysis protocol for this research. RCM and EP coded the interviews. OS and HC, under the direction of RC-M, led the analysis. RC-M, OS, and HC drafted an initial version of this manuscript. All authors provided intellectual contribution in project development, research methods, analysis, and writeup. GK and HW provided additional writing and revision efforts.

Funding

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant #1664366 and Grant #1432297.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Footnotes

The study was initiated at University of South Florida and was later transferred to the University of Connecticut. The researchers were permitted to continue the study based on the protocols approved by the University of South Florida based on an authorization agreement between the two universities

References

Lin, N. (2008). "Network Theory of Social Capital," in The Handbook of Social Capital. Editors D. Castiglione, J.V. Deth, and G. Wolleb (Oxford University Press), 50-69. A
Google Scholar
Lin, N. (1999). Building a Network Theory of Social Capital. Connections 22 (1), 28-51.
Google Scholar
Margolis, J., Fisher, A., and Miller, F. (2000). The Anatomy of Interest: Women in Undergraduate Computer Science. Women's Stud. Q. 28 (1/2), 104-127.
Google Scholar
Peters, Jan. W., Campbell-Montalvo, R., Leibnitz, G. M., Metcalf, H., Sims, E. L., Lucy-Putwen, A., et al. (2021). Refining an Assessment Tool to Optimize Gender Equity in Professional STEM Societies. WCER Working Papers Series. WCER_Working_Paper_No_2021_7.Pdf (wisc.Edu).
Google Scholar
Smith, C. A. S., Wao, H., Martin, J. P., MacDonald, G. T., Lee, R. S., and Kersaint, G. (2015). "Designing a Survey for Engineering Undergraduates Using Free Listing," in An Anthropological Structured Technique Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington. June10.18260/p.23814.
Google Scholar

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
stem - science technology engineering mathematics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Influence of Professional Engineering Organizations on Women and Underrepresented Minority Students' Fit

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Our work focuses on women and underrepresented minority (URM) students' cultural models of engineering success (CMES) or beliefs about doing well in engineering. Because of its consequential effect on persistence, we pay special attention to the fit domain of CMES-student feelings of belonging in their engineering program.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
“Now I’m Not Afraid”: The Influence of Identity-Focused STEM Professional Organizations on the Persistence of Sexual and Gender Minority Undergraduates in STEM

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In comparison to work on women and historically excluded racial/ethnic minority students in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), research on sexual and gender minority (SGM) students in STEM is somewhat incipient. There is little scholarship available on SGM-focused STEM organizations…

# data[].attributes.body
Patricia is Professor of Biology at George Washington University and President of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. The Hernandez lab studies craniofacial development using the zebrafish model system. The Hernandez lab research centers around uncovering the developmental mechanisms involved in vertebrate head formation.

# data[].attributes.body
Super excited for Day 2 as we tackle the inclusivity of scientists in career transitions by scientific societies!

# data[].attributes.headline
Article describing the self-study and initial steps towards anti-racism in SABER.

# data[].attributes.subject
Article describing the self-study and initial steps towards anti-racism in SABER.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
SHARE ON
TABLE OF CONTENTS

People also looked at

¹Department of Biology, University of North Georgia, Dahlonega, GA, United States

²Department of Biological Sciences, Florida International University, Miami, FL, United States

³Section of Cell and Developmental Biology, Division of Biological Sciences and Program in Mathematics and Science Education, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States

⁴Department of Biology, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, United States

⁵Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, School of Natural Sciences, University of California, Merced, Merced, CA, United States

⁶Department of Biological Sciences, Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY, United States

⁷School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, United States

⁸Department of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, United States

⁹University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO, United States

¹⁰Department of Biological Sciences, Florida International University, Miami, FL, United States

¹¹Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, United States

¹²School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, United States

¹³Department of Integrative Biology, University of Colorado Denver, Denver, CO, United States

¹⁴School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, United States

¹⁵Pima Community College, Tucson, AZ, United States

¹⁶Department of Biology, University of West Florida, Pensacola, FL, United States

¹⁷Department of Teaching and Learning, The College of Education and Human Ecology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States

¹⁸School of Biological Science, Illinois State University, Normal, IL, United States

¹⁹Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, United States

²⁰University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, United States

²¹Department of Bioengineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States

²²Department of Genetics Development and Cell Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, United States

²³Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, United States

²⁴Department of Biology, University of Wisconsin La Crosse, La Crosse, WI, United States

²⁵Biology and Neuroscience, Davidson College, Davidson, NC, United States

²⁶Department of Biology, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA, United States

²⁷Department of Biological Sciences, California State University, Sacramento, CA, United States

²⁸Department of Science, Augustana Campus, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada

²⁹Department of Natural Resources Science, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI, United States

³⁰Department of Biology, Lawrence University, Appleton, WI, United States

³¹College of Sciences, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, United States

³²Department of Biological Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, United States

³³Division of Biological Sciences, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, CA, United States

³⁴School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, University of Washington Bothell, Bothell, WA, United States

³⁵Section of Neurobiology, Division of Biological Sciences and Program in Mathematics and Science Education, University of California, San Diego, CA, United States

³⁶Searle Center for Advancing Learning and Teaching, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, United States

³⁷Biology Department and Neuroscience Program, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA, United States

³⁸Department of Biological Sciences, The University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, United States

³⁹Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics, University of Minnesota Medical School and College of Biological Sciences, Minneapolis, MN, United States

⁴⁰Department of Anatomy, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States

⁴¹Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States

⁴²Department of Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, United States

⁴³Department of Microbiology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States

⁴⁴Biomedical Research Education and Training Office and Department of Biochemistry, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States

⁴⁵Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, United States

⁴⁶Department of Biology Teaching and Learning, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, United States

⁴⁷Department of Biology, Utah Valley University, Orem, UT, United States

⁴⁸Department of Biology, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, United States

The tragic murder of Mr. George Floyd brought to the head long-standing issues of racial justice and equity in the United States and beyond. This prompted many institutions of higher education, including professional organizations and societies, to engage in long-overdue conversations about the role of scientific institutions in perpetuating racism. Similar to many professional societies and organizations, the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER), a leading international professional organization for discipline-based biology education researchers, has long struggled with a lack of representation of People of Color (POC) at all levels within the organization. The events surrounding Mr. Floyd's death prompted the members of SABER to engage in conversations to promote self-reflection and discussion on how the society could become more antiracist and inclusive. These, in turn, resulted in several initiatives that led to concrete actions to support POC, increase their representation, and amplify their voices within SABER. These initiatives included: a self-study of SABER to determine challenges and identify ways to address them, a year-long seminar series focused on issues of social justice and inclusion, a special interest group to provide networking opportunities for POC and to center their voices, and an increase in the diversity of keynote speakers and seminar topics at SABER conferences. In this article, we chronicle the journey of SABER in its efforts to become more inclusive and antiracist. We are interested in increasing POC representation within our community and seek to bring our resources and scholarship to reimagine professional societies as catalyst agents towards an equitable antiracist experience. Specifically, we describe the 12 concrete actions that SABER enacted over a period of a year and the results from these actions so far. In addition, we discuss remaining challenges and future steps to continue to build a more welcoming, inclusive, and equitable space for all biology education researchers, especially our POC members. Ultimately, we hope that the steps undertaken by SABER will enable many more professional societies to embark on their reflection journeys to further broaden scientific communities.

Introduction

In this essay, we describe SABER's actions in direct response to Mr. George Floyd's death, discuss the impact of these actions, and articulate SABER's long-term goals for addressing systemic racism both within the society and broader academic structures. The goal of documenting this process is to show how a professional society could be mobilized in response to an event that heightened long-standing issues of racial justice and equity, and how the resulting journey led to tangible evidence of positive change in a year. We hope that the reflections in this essay will serve as a general guide to other professional societies that are grappling with how to address issues related to racism, diversity, equity, and social justice.

Positionality of Authors

We are writing this essay on behalf of SABER, but it brings up an important question as far as who constitutes SABER and who can speak on behalf of an organization of hundreds of people, all of whom have a different history and set of experiences and perceptions of the organization. We acknowledge this challenge and hope that our shared contribution can help describe the collective efforts of the society, but we know that voices are missing. We tried to identify people who contributed in specific ways to these 12 actions and invited them as authors. Our team cannot speak about the experiences or perceptions of all SABER members, but the authors identify as white, Latinx, Black, Southeast Asian, East Asian, South Asian, multiracial, Immigrant American, women, men, non-binary, genderqueer, LGBTQ+, first-generation college graduate, continuing generation college graduate, non-traditional student, parent, caregiver, chronically ill, living with a disability, religious, non-religious, and associated with the military ( Smith-Keiling et al., 2020). We represent graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, university staff, tenure-track faculty, tenured faculty, and non-tenure-track faculty including lecturers. Some of us have held leadership positions at the highest levels of SABER, including the Steering and Executive committees, others have served as committee chairs, committee participants, abstract reviewers, event facilitators, or as general attendees of the conference.

The Origins of SABER and its Lack of Representation of People of Color

More than a decade ago, the need emerged for a new professional society focused on biology education research. More biologists and biology educators were engaging in discipline-based education research, yet there was not a single meeting where everyone could attend to present their work. Discipline-based education researchers in fields like physics, chemistry, and geoscience in the United States could attend one or two professional society meetings. However, the sub-disciplinary nature of biology - with over 64 different professional societies (e.g., American Society for Plant Biologists, American Society for Microbiology, American Society for Cell Biology) - made it impossible for all biology educators to attend a single cohesive biology meeting. Many of these sub-disciplinary biology societies had some sessions focused on education research, although there were often very few organized talks and posters, making it difficult to justify the expense of attending the entire meeting.

In response to this need, SABER was founded in 2010. In the first year, a group of 29 invited biologists and biology education researchers convened at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis to lay the groundwork for the society ( Offerdahl et al., 2011). The new SABER society exclusively focused on biology education research, and its unofficial slogan of "Show me the data" emphasized the need for systematically collecting evidence to make instructional decisions within biology courses. Given the social contexts of the issues that some SABER members attempt to address, "data" here are inclusive of that derived from both qualitative and quantitative approaches to experimental design ( Lo et al., 2019). We also note that our students are more than just sources of data and consider the impact of our research on their lives and education.

The first annual meeting of SABER was held in 2011 at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Every in-person meeting thereafter was held at this same location because it was logistically convenient and also kept the meeting costs affordable. Specifically, free access to meeting rooms at the university and the low cost of food kept the registration costs relatively economical in comparison to other education or scientific meetings. The availability of a major international airport, convenient mass transportation, student dorms and hotels within walking distance of the meeting, and the central location of Minneapolis with respect to the east and west coasts of the US made travel costs less expensive. Lower costs for attendees reduced the financial barrier posed by a typical meeting attendance and thus made attending SABER relatively financially inclusive.

The first seven meetings were primarily organized by one of the founders of SABER. In 2017, the inaugural steering committee, which was composed of eight people, was formed to create bylaws, organizational structure, and hold the first elections. This steering committee made diversity and inclusion key components of the bylaws and goals of the organization, and visibly posted both the society's goals and a diversity statement on the organization website. Reflective of these priorities, the Diversity and Inclusion Committee ( Table 1) was the second SABER-wide committee to be formed in 2018, after the Abstract Review Committee. The first president, president-elect, secretary, and treasurer were elected in 2019. Although SABER has held 11 annual meetings that have attracted thousands of people, it is still a young society with no paid staff, composed exclusively of volunteer leaders and committee members, and with a formal structure that has only been in place for two years.

Most scientific professional societies have a history of racial exclusion and continue to grapple with issues of inclusion and diversity within the membership ( Cech and Waidzunas, 2019; ASM Diversity, 2020; Lee et al., 2020; Segarra et al., 2020b; Ali et al., 2021; Carter et al., 2021); the ubiquity of this problem illustrates its systemic nature. Steps to address racial inequity are specifically important for professional societies because these societies ought to provide a platform for individuals from minoritized backgrounds to share their research and build a network for their continued professional success ( Morris and Washington, 2017; Segarra et al., 2017; Lee et al., 2020; Segarra et al., 2020b; Harris et al., 2021; Madzima and MacIntosh, 2021). SABER, like other professional societies, has struggled with a lack of representation of People of Color (POC), including in leadership positions. The 29 scholars who were invited to the initial meeting of the organization were all white-presenting¹. The founders of SABER, seven out of eight of the steering committee members, and the majority of committee chairs have been white-presenting, including the two inaugural co-chairs of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee. All of the elected officers in the first round of elections were white. Further, even though no demographic data were collected on race or ethnicity before 2020, an overwhelming majority of attendees at the annual conference have been perceived as white. It is important to point out that the reasons for these observations are complex and potentially the result of the intrinsic racial composition of the SABER membership that mirrors the national trend of faculty in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields ( Miriti, 2020; National Science Foundation, 2021). In this article, we define POC as individuals who identify as members of racial and ethnic groups that have been traditionally marginalized. This denomination includes, but is not limited to, individuals who identify as Asian, Black, Latinx, and Indigenous. We focus on marginalization rather than underrepresentation because certain racial and ethnic groups, while not underrepresented in STEM, still experience marginalization ( Siy and Cheryan, 2013; Yip et al., 2021).

Indeed, the lack of racial and ethnic diversity in the membership and leadership of SABER reflects a wider issue within STEM, both in the workplace and in academia. The lower representation of certain groups in STEM extends from the college level through the attainment and retention of academic faculty positions ( Allen-Ramdial and Campbell, 2014; Hassouneh et al., 2014; National Science Foundation, 2021; Pew Research Center, 2021). Moreover, diversity in the workforce and in academia is not reflective of the ethnic and racial composition of the US ( Allen-Ramdial and Campbell, 2014; Li and Koedel, 2017; Morris and Washington, 2017; Martinez-Acosta and Favero, 2018; Miriti, 2020; National Science Foundation, 2021). Factors that influence the observed underrepresentation of racial and ethnic minorities in STEM are varied, and include the lack of access to research experiences at the college level, paucity of mentorship at different career stages, and the creation and perpetuation of institutional environments around race that range from apathetic to repressive ( Mahoney et al., 2008; Villarejo et al., 2008; Peralta, 2015; Valantine and Collins, 2015; Whittaker et al., 2015; Zambrana et al., 2015; McMurtrie, 2016; Swartz et al., 2019; Folkenflik, 2021; Gosztyla et al., 2021). Interestingly, a climate survey of the membership of the American Physiological Society (APS) revealed unwelcoming environments across different sectors, including private corporations and academia, highlighting that issues with inclusion are pervasive in society ( ASM Diversity, 2020). Even though there are many initiatives aimed at increasing diversity, these often fall short when implemented in academic STEM spaces that are not supportive and inclusive ( Puritty et al., 2017).

In response to the survey results, members of the Executive and Diversity and Inclusion committees ( Table 1) decided to: 1) track the demographics of registrants for the annual meetings starting in 2020 to better characterize the racial composition of SABER, 2) compare the demographics of abstract submitters and accepted abstract presenters to identify any inequities in abstract acceptance that should be addressed, and 3) establish and support the Mentoring Committee, to address issues of inclusion for newcomers ( Table 1). Further, the Diversity and Inclusion Committee generated a list of ideas to address additional issues from the survey responses, but none of the ideas were transformed into tangible actions during the 2019-2020 academic year. Thus, although the leadership of SABER had taken initial steps to address issues of inclusion and diversity, the majority of the actions described in this article resulted from conversations and discussions in the summer of 2020.

To begin addressing issues of lack of support and inclusion, the "SABER Buddies" program was instituted to build community among new SABER attendees. The Diversity and Inclusion Committee suggested the name and the Mentoring Committee implemented the structure of the program. This initiative paired multiple new or returning attendees with mentors who had previously attended SABER, forming groups of four to seven people. Small group mentoring was used in an effort to provide new attendees with multiple contacts and ease potential social and logistical pressures. Mentors were asked to meet with attendees and help introduce the conference to them; attendees were encouraged to ask mentors questions and some of these conversations even led to new collaborations. The SABER Buddies program was so well-received that it was implemented again in 2021 and is being extended into a yearlong mentoring program. In addition to the Buddies, virtual game nights were hosted in SABER 2020 and 2021, and in SABER West in 2021. These virtual game nights were designed to help graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to meet and interact.

The Impetus for Change: Mr. George Floyd's Murder

As protests began nationwide in response to Mr. George Floyd's murder ( Bryson Taylor, 2020), SABER, like many other scientific professional societies, was silent on the issue until a Black member emailed the SABER listserv. The call for justice in support of those who have experienced racially-motivated trauma created a sense of urgency and propelled a flurry of emails about whether the conference should continue to be held in Minneapolis given the local history of systemic racism there. This tragic event and the resulting email exchanges on the SABER listserv served as a catalyst for SABER to self-reflect on its previous inaction on systemic racism, to recognize that systemic racism pervades nationally but manifests in different ways, and to determine what changes needed to be made to the organization to make it more inclusive.

Response of the SABER Community

Within three weeks of Mr. George Floyd's murder, SABER's Executive and Diversity and Inclusion committees worked together to: 1) create a public statement of solidarity with the Black community, 2) send a letter to entities in Minnesota to financially pressure them to end police brutality, and 3) initiate a task force open to anyone in the SABER community called Diversity and Inclusion Action Group on Place and Racial Justice ( Table 1; Figure 2, actions 1, 2 and 4). These initial actions, coupled with the email discussions resulting from Mr. George Floyd's murder, ultimately led to additional actions ( Figure 2, actions 5-12). Importantly, while some of the discussions and activities related to these actions included all members of the society, some of the activities were first steps towards involving and amplifying the voices of POC members of SABER. For example, many of the actions that derived from conversations within the Diversity and Inclusion Action Group ( Figure 2, actions 5-8 and 10) were shaped by the perspectives and suggestions of POC SABER members on how to best address issues of equity and inclusion. The creation of an online environment for difficult dialogues on how to tackle issues of inclusion in SABER was important for the creation of initiatives that responded to POC members' needs. These 12 actions are described in detail below, including what has resulted from the action.

Action 1: Published a Statement of Solidarity With the Black Community

Given that members often look up to professional societies to model what is appropriate and accepted in the field, the silence of an organization can inadvertently indicate approval or neutrality about an issue or event, even if that event runs counter to the goals of the organization ( Settles et al., 2020). As such, it can be useful for professional societies to make formal statements about events or issues, particularly when they affect marginalized groups within the organization, so that the organization does not appear to ignore the situation.

The SABER Executive Committee felt a response was needed to the events surrounding Mr. George Floyd's murder. However, they were aware of their positionality as white individuals and for that reason relied on the Diversity and Inclusion Committee, which included POC, to take the lead in drafting a statement indicating SABER's explicit solidarity with the Black community. This statement highlighted SABER's support for the Black community, particularly students and colleagues in biology, and an acknowledgement of the society's current lack of awareness and action regarding racial injustices, even though a stated goal of the society was to strive for an inclusive community ( Table 2). The statement, which was reviewed and edited by the member who first emailed the listserv, the SABER Diversity and Inclusion Committee, and the SABER Executive Committee, was then posted on the society website and sent to everyone on the society listserv.

Even though the statement promised specific commitment to raising awareness of issues of racism and taking antiracist actions, it was in many ways written from the point of view of a white majority organization with white majority perspectives. As such, the statement intentionally recommended resources focused on what white people could do for racial justice and how to unpack white privilege. While unintentional, the language of the statement subtly positioned the organization as distinct from the Black community (thereby erasing the presence of SABER members who identify as Black), by standing in solidarity with the Black community and committing for white individuals to learn about the struggles of students and colleagues from minoritized backgrounds. In addition to providing educational resources to the membership on issues of diversity and racism, it is important for SABER to center minority voices in ways that consider them as rightfully present with legitimized membership in the organization ( Calabrese Barton and Tan, 2020). Because of the perceived timely need of producing a statement and the concern about silence being interpreted as lack of compassion, there was not enough time to solicit extensive feedback from a diversity of perspectives on the statement, which may have identified some of these problems beforehand. Nonetheless, this statement represents an important first step for the society to acknowledge its history and reckon with potential future actions. We share the imperfect nature of the SABER statement of solidarity not as an indictment of those who worked to show their support of minoritized individuals, but as a way to alert readers who care about issues of racism and social justice to the importance of including a variety of individuals with different perspectives when crafting a document meant to represent the stance of the entire membership of a society.

Notably, many other scientific societies, institutions of higher education, and private corporations also responded to the events surrounding the death of Mr. George Floyd by posting statements of solidarity with the Black community ( Staff A. P., 2020; August et al., 2020; Bertuzzi and Patel, 2020; Staff E., 2020; Samuelson et al., 2020; Schloss et al., 2020). Some of these statements had similar issues as SABER's statement and others were critiqued for committing to efforts that were largely symbolic and short-term ( Belay, 2020; Bumb, 2020; Weiser, 2020). However, the SABER membership saw their statement of solidarity not as the end of their pledge to address systemic racism and racial injustices, but as the first step. The remainder of this manuscript describes 11 additional steps that were taken to transform this pledge into actions to pave the way towards concrete changes in the society's practices, policies, and composition.

Action 2: Pressured Minnesota Financially to Stop Police Brutality

Professional societies can bring hundreds to thousands of people into a city, creating revenue for transportation, lodging, and restaurants. This financial influence can be used as an agent of change, as when organizations boycotted North Carolina when it enacted anti-transgender policies ( Jenkins and Trotta, 2017). SABER held its annual meeting in Minneapolis for eight consecutive years, bringing thousands of visitors into Minneapolis. In an effort to exert a political impact by using its financial influence, SABER sent letters to the governor of Minnesota, the mayor of Minneapolis, the CEO and manager of the hotel where conference participants typically stay, the director of operations for the catering company that has supplied food for the conference dinners, the deli that had supplied lunches, and the chief of the Minneapolis police. The letter stated that SABER would stop meeting there if it did not see evidence of justice and changes in Minnesota law enforcement. An excerpt demands that:

"We need to see tangible evidence of action for justice for Mr. Floyd and of changes in Minnesota law enforcement. Such changes would include de-escalation training for police, firing of police who violate human rights, and implicit bias training for all government officials, police, and other public servants. These actions will allow its citizens of color to feel protected, not threatened, by police. We need to see the requests, needs and perspectives of your Black communities in Minneapolis and Minnesota honored."

The letters had three concrete demands: justice, to the extent it could be achieved, for Mr. George Floyd, changes in Minnesota law enforcement, and honoring the requests, needs, and perspectives of Black communities in Minnesota. We have included the complete letter that was sent to the governor in the Supplementary Materials.

SABER did not hear back from anyone who received the letters, so it is impossible to discern the letter's impact. That said, the society was part of a broader social movement to demand change in the Minneapolis Police Department. The society followed what happened concerning justice and reform in Minneapolis over the next year to see whether our demands were met. While justice for Mr. George Floyd can never be fully served, all four of the police officers involved in his death were fired and charged with either second-degree murder or aiding and abetting second-degree murder. Notably, police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter and sentenced to 22.5 years in prison. In terms of changes in Minnesota law enforcement, while initial protests in Minneapolis were often met with a seemingly violent police presence, the city of Minneapolis did invoke plans for police reform ( Office of Police Conduct Review, 2021), which included new disciplinary processes and body worn camera policy changes, as well as requiring officers to use the lowest level of force to safely engage a suspect. However, there is concern about whether this reform is sufficient or meaningful. Much work still needs to be done in terms of honoring the requests, needs, and perspectives of Black communities in Minnesota and across the US. Black people continue to die at the hands of the Minneapolis police force ( Hargarten et al., 2021), what reforms to enact remain contentious both overall and within the Black community ( Janzer, 2021), and everything is occurring within a national framework that greatly limits police accountability ( Carlisle, 2021).

Action 3: Organized How to Be an Antiracist Book Club to Foster Awareness

Professional societies can serve as sources of information for its members. The initial statement from SABER (action 1) indicated that SABER committed to becoming more knowledgeable about how biases contribute to racial injustices. The email conversations on whether the SABER conference should continue to meet in Minneapolis spurred two SABER members to organize and facilitate a virtual book club to discuss Dr. Ibram X. Kendi's book How to Be an Antiracist ( Kendi, 2019) and how to consider its principles in our STEM teaching and research. The initial call resulted in 49% of the SABER membership (286 individuals) expressing interest in joining a virtual learning community. Twenty nine facilitators led different sections with a total of 191 participants. The two organizers met with facilitators across three separate meetings prior to the start of the book club to talk about the format and share sample discussion questions and facilitation tips ( see Supplementary Materials). Each discussion group met three to five times during the summer of 2020. The organizers convened at the end of the summer with 13 of the 29 facilitators (others could not meet due to scheduling conflicts) and debriefed ways to improve this process and gauge interest in future book club discussions. Some groups continued to meet and discuss other books and media focused on racism (e.g., Race after Technology, Benjamin, 2019). Given the predominantly white membership of SABER, it is important to acknowledge the tendency for white communities to join book clubs when Black trauma occurs in lieu of taking actionable steps to address racism from a position of privilege ( Johnson, 2020). For this reason, during discussions facilitators specifically asked participants to identify antiracist action-oriented goals they could implement at the individual to institutional levels. Actions articulated included: identifying specific changes to course content, facilitating workshops on inclusive teaching practices, attending conferences such as NCORE (National Conference on Race and Ethnicity), creating departmental antiracism working groups, advocating for more equitable admissions and hiring practices, applying for funding to support antiracist initiatives, and writing letters to administrators about creating more inclusive institutional environments. Due to the way it was organized, the book club helped increase awareness and focus conversations toward actionable change in the SABER community.

Action 4: Formed a Diversity and Inclusion Action Group on Place and Racial Justice

To immediately respond to the issues of race and social justice that arose during the email conversations resulting from the murder of Mr. George Floyd, the Diversity and Inclusion Committee created the Diversity and Inclusion Action Group on Place and Racial Justice task force ( Table 1) to focus on two goals. The first was to identify issues of "place" that create a sense of safety, or lack thereof, to members of SABER who identify as POC in consideration for future conference locations. The second was to assess actions that SABER and its members could take to promote awareness of and action surrounding racial justice.

This task force convened to develop concrete recommendations that would be conveyed at the SABER 2020 meeting that was happening within a month. A group of 25 people participated in a series of meetings and online discussions to try to address current challenges for POC in SABER. The group collectively brainstormed steps that could be enacted in the short-term (over the following weeks) and long-term (within the year) to begin addressing these issues. They generated seven ideas ( Figure 2, actions 5-8 and 10-12) that the SABER community enacted and which are described below. The action group dissolved after the summer 2020 meeting because the intent was for it to be a temporary task force that would lead to more permanent SABER infrastructure to carry out the long-term actions.

Action 5: Advertised SABER 2020 Conference Broadly to Increase Representation of POC and Build Community During the Conference

The group identified a number of listservs and emails to contact about the 2020 SABER conference: American Society of Microbiology, Council for Undergraduate Research, National Institute on Scientific Teaching, CUREnet, CC BioINSITES, HHMI Inclusive Excellence Awardees, IRACDA, SACNAS, CCB FEST, SABER West, Sigma Xi, AAAS Community Board, and Research on STEM education (ROSE) Network ( See Supplementary Materials for more information about these organizations). While some of these organizations are specifically for POC, others were leveraged by the social networks of people in the action group to try to broaden awareness of the conference. Additionally, SABER used social media to promote the conference, initiating the SABER Twitter and Instagram accounts.

As a result of these actions, the number of people who participated in SABER in 2020 was nearly double the number who participated in 2019. While we did not collect data on the racial and ethnic breakdown of SABER attendees prior to 2020, the percentage of POC who attended SABER in 2020 was 24.3% (307/1264) and in 2021 was 25.9% (174/673). Additionally, the fact that 24% of attendees in 2020 were POC is encouraging given the perception from the 2019 survey responses that POC attendance was much lower. The 2020 and 2021 rates of POC attendance could be explained by at least two alternative hypotheses: 1) the number of POC who attended SABER increased from 2019 to 2021 in part due to some of the actions taken, or 2) the 2019 perception that the percentage of POC in SABER was much lower than 24% did not match actual POC attendance. POC individuals can be "invisible" in professional situations, either because they physically pass for white and may not be perceived as POC, or because they are simply not seen as professionals ( Morris and Washington, 2017; Settles et al., 2020). Thus, while it is possible that POC representation in SABER drastically increased from 2019 to 2021, we cannot discount the latter explanation without baseline demographic data. Notably, in 2020, 63.5% (803/1264) of SABER conference registrants were first time attendees and 27.4% of these first time attendees were POC compared to 18.9% of non-first timers ( Figure 3). In 2021, 39.2% (264/673) of people were new attendees and 31.4% were POC compared to 22.3% of non-first timers ( Figure 3). These numbers suggest that SABER has attracted a more diverse membership in recent years and supports the hypothesis that the number of POC who attended SABER increased from 2019 to 2021. Overall, the racial demographics of SABER are similar to those of other biology professional societies: a 2019 study of the APS membership conducted as part of the STEM Inclusion Study and a climate study conducted by the American Society for Microbiology ( Cech and Waidzunas, 2019; ASM Diversity, 2020) indicated that 28% of respondents were Asian, Black or Latinx.

Action 6: Conduct a Self-Study of Issues of Systemic Racism Within SABER With a Trained Facilitator

To better understand how SABER as a professional society could help support POC within SABER, the Diversity and Inclusion Action Group on Place and Racial Justice task force conducted a self-study of the organization and dedicated time during the 2020 annual meeting to help accomplish this objective. We were mindful of the positionality of the facilitator of the self-study during the selection process since we wanted someone who was external to the society and who had relevant personal experience. We therefore invited Dr. Kecia Thomas, a Black scholar who is an expert in the organizational experiences of minority groups and the psychology of workplace diversity, to facilitate this self-study. This self-study included: 1) a pre-conference survey that asked participants to share their thoughts about SABER's strengths, weaknesses, and barriers for promoting diversity and inclusion, 2) a presentation by the expert facilitator about the importance of diversity in professional organizations, 3) engaging in affinity groups over two weeks to discuss questions related to diversity and inclusion, and 4) having the facilitator convey the results of the self-study to SABER attendees. The pre-survey allowed individuals to anonymously share their thoughts and ideas with the facilitator, and the affinity group leaders summarized the discussions from their groups and shared these with the facilitator. The affinity groups included the following categories: POC, LGBTQ+ individuals, individuals with disabilities, religious individuals, women, community college faculty, primarily undergraduate institution faculty, postdoctoral scholars and graduate students, undergraduates, mentors for graduate students and postdoctoral scholars in biology education research, and an open group for anyone to join. The presentation by the facilitator was intended to broaden awareness about issues of diversity in an organization. It highlighted definitions of diversity and inclusion ( Downey et al., 2015), diversity resistance in organizations (e.g., silence regarding inequities, diversity is too time consuming, discrediting ideas of individuals who are in the minority ( Thomas, 2008; Segarra et al., 2020b)), implicit biases and reinforcing of negative racial stereotypes ( Wheeler et al., 2001), privilege of majority identities, and the "otherness" of being in the minority.

After evaluating the pre-survey responses and the affinity group responses, particularly those from marginalized groups, the facilitator summarized the key findings. The three most prominent findings are listed in Table 3. Many of the recommendations were focused on increasing representation and supporting POC in SABER, building community and belongingness, and promoting greater awareness of diversity and inclusion. Notably, many of the recommendations aligned with ideas that the action group had already identified and was making progress on, but importantly these recommendations were derived from the broader SABER community. In Table 3, we also highlight how the SABER community is addressing these recommendations and what future plans are intended to be accomplished by July 2022. It is important to mention that conversations during the self-study and within the action group acknowledged that even when other locations were being considered as options for future SABER conferences, we had to bear in mind that systemic racism is nationally found. For this reason, the action group recommended focusing on identifying meaningful opportunities for outreach with local communities of color in future meeting locations ( Table 3). For a copy of the pre-conference survey questions or the discussion questions in the affinity groups, see Supplementary Materials. For a video of the complete summary of the self-study results, see this link: https://saberbio.wildapricot.org/2020-July-24-Anti-Racism-Summary.

SABER attendees were surveyed after the 2020 meeting. On average, respondents said that they agreed with the statement, "I found SABER's 2020 national meeting to be equitable and inclusive." Some participants noted that SABER had done more specifically on diversity and inclusion within the society and at the conference, and many noted a positive shift from previous years. Many participants mentioned that they appreciated the work done by the racial justice action group, the self-study, the affinity groups, the buddy system for new attendees, and the online free and accessible format. Even though respondents noted that there was room for improvement in terms of the overall lack of diversity in SABER, they appreciated that it seemed like SABER was acknowledging this problem and making concrete actions to rectify it for future meetings.

Action 7: Establish a People of Color Special Interest Group Within SABER

During conversations within the Diversity and Inclusion Action Group on Place and Racial Justice, the idea emerged that building a community for SABER members who identify as POC would be an important early step in making the professional society more inclusive. This community would also help to address the overarching feeling of exclusion that many SABER members who identify as POC had voiced. Three members of this action group volunteered to lead the creation of the community. Since SABER already had in place special interest groups (SIGs) as a tool for individuals with similar interests and identities to connect (e.g., LGBTQ+ special interest group, Physiology special interest group), it made sense to use this existing framework to build a community for individuals who identify as POC. Initially, the group was termed the Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) SIG. However, the SIG was eventually renamed the PEER Network after conversations between members revealed that the term PEER (Persons Excluded because of their Ethnicity or Race, ( Asai, 2020)) better reflected the identity of individuals in the group ( Table 1). The first meetings of this SIG coincided with the two self-study affinity group sessions during the July 2020 SABER meeting. More than 20 people met as part of this group during the conference. The general consensus after these meetings was that the SIG should be a community that met throughout the year and had an online space for PEER members to network, collaborate, and grow professionally.

After the July 2020 SABER meeting, the group leads designed and distributed a survey through the SABER email listserv to help shape the direction of the SIG and to collect contact information for individuals interested in joining the group. The results of this survey showed that individuals were most interested in participating in: 1) journal clubs on articles related to inclusiveness, diversity, and antiracist pedagogical practices, 2) mentoring groups, 3) social check-in meetings, and 4) regular meetings to discuss topics of importance to PEERs. Other priorities mentioned in the survey were increasing the visibility of PEERs within SABER, building research collaborations, mental health resources, fundraising, and the creation of a PEER SIG listserv. During this time, we received several emails from individuals asking to join the SIG who do not identify as PEERs but who wanted to be involved in advancing the role of PEERs in SABER. Since, as a group, the members of the network wanted to make it an inclusive space, we decided to leave it open to allies who are not PEERs, and we publicized this in emails to the SABER listserv and during PEER SIG meetings. The PEER Network met as a group twice in the fall of 2020. These initial meetings led to the creation of six subgroups: 1) Happy hour, 2) Journal club, 3) Mentoring (modeled after the SABER-wide "SABER Buddies" program), 4) Safe space (this is the only subgroup that is restricted to individuals who identify as PEERs), 5) Website, and 6) Writing buddies.

Another top priority was to establish an online presence within SABER to enhance the visibility of PEERs, attract new members, and facilitate collaborations. To accomplish this, we solicited and found a volunteer to build a webpage for the PEER Network. The webpage ( https://saberbio.wildapricot.org/PEER-Network) contains a description of the goals of the group as well as its mission. In addition, it contains an announcement section, information on the subgroups, a community discussion forum, and contact information for joining the PEER Network and the subgroups. The design and content for the webpage was refined using member feedback.

Currently, the PEER Network SABER SIG has 105 members out of 582 SABER members (18% of the SABER membership). These numbers provide evidence for the tremendous need for community among SABER POC members. The creation of this group has provided fertile ground for important discussions related to diversity and inclusion within SABER. Our meetings have offered a way for individuals who identify as PEERs to connect and share their experiences. Perhaps most importantly, the creation of this SIG gave PEERs a collective voice within SABER that was previously unavailable. During the summer of 2021, two members of the PEER Network were elected to the offices of President-elect and Secretary of SABER. During our most recent meetings, discussions organically arose about how to further amplify PEER voices by beginning advocacy efforts in SABER.

Action 8: Initiated Sense of Place Committee to Discuss the Physical Location of the Conference

The impetus for the formation of the Diversity and Inclusion Action Group on Place and Racial Justice task force was the discussion about where to hold the annual conference and whether it should be held in Minneapolis. For this reason, a sub-committee of the task force was the Sense of Place Committee ( Table 1), which intentionally included POC, Minneapolis residents, and individuals at different career stages from different types of institutions. The final committee was composed of 16 people and met in three rounds in July 2020 to discuss issues related to the physical location of the SABER conference and Minneapolis specifically. Representatives from the committee shared their advice with the SABER community at the last session of the 2020 SABER conference.

Although the original intent was to discuss how to choose a physical conference location in a way that would honor SABER POC, the conversation broadened with the realization that every major city in the US has racial tensions and systemic racial inequities. The committee did weigh the impacts of registration and travel costs, the logistical challenges of moving to a new location, and previous incidents of racial violence in certain places. However, the discussion expanded to focus on how the SABER community could engage in a more meaningful way with local communities of color, including Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs), Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Notably, the committee did not recommend against going back to Minneapolis, as long as progress was made towards racial justice and police reform that reflected the demands stated in the letter we sent to the city ( see action 2). There was broad support for keeping a part of the meeting virtual, instituting travel scholarships for POC, and intentionally partnering with local communities of color. This could include speakers addressing local issues of social justice relating to education, being thoughtful about who we are financially supporting (e.g., Black-owned catering companies), and engaging explicitly with local Students of Color through fee waivers and special sessions.

Action 9: Hosted a Town hall on Inclusion at SABER West 2021

Beginning in 2017, the University of California, Irvine has been home to SABER West, an annual regional conference aimed at providing faculty, staff, and students who seek to improve biology education and conduct education research with an opportunity to engage with the SABER community. While built upon SABER's focus on biology education research, SABER West has been dedicated to increasing diversity and inclusion by fostering the professional development of biology researchers and educators from community college and other non-research-intensive institutions, a population that is underrepresented at education research conferences. This goal is made explicit by a unique meeting format that includes workshops to promote the development of attendees' research skills and assist with the implementation of evidence-based teaching practices, as well as multiple sessions to foster collaborative research or pedagogical connections between 2-and 4-year affiliates.

The exacerbation of existing inequities by the pandemic and the national call for higher education to re-evaluate its anti-Black and anti-POC policies after Mr. George Floyd's death led SABER West organizers to reiterate the need to make diversity, equity, and inclusion in conference spaces a priority. In response, the conference organizers met consistently to reflect on these priorities and to assess whether we, as a field, were critical of our own roles in perpetuating inequality and inequity, especially centered on race and ethnicity.

During the Town Hall, panelists identified and presented the themes that arose from the survey responses: 1) Monetary and physical barriers to conference attendance that can be marginalizing for individuals with families or those who work at institutions with less professional development support, 2) First- or second-hand experience with discriminatory behavior at STEM education conferences, resulting in unwelcoming climates, 3) Physical spaces or programming that has not been designed with individuals with disabilities in mind, and 4) A lack of representation and inclusion of individuals and researchers from 2-year colleges, HBCUs, and Tribal Colleges, resulting in reinforcement of academic hierarchies where participants from 4-year research-intensive institutions often comprise the overwhelming majority of conference attendees. These themes highlight participants' perceptions of the different barriers to inclusion that can be present in conference spaces.

Panelists viewed their contributions to the Town Hall as giving a voice to and elevating the experiences of those who have been marginalized in these conference spaces. This event was envisioned as a starting point to characterize the current participant experience of STEM education conferences and provide information for SABER West organizers, SABER as a whole, and the broader STEM education research community, to develop ways to create more inclusive conference space.

Action 10: Increase the Diversity of Keynote Addresses for the SABER 2021 Conference

The majority of invited keynote speakers throughout the history of SABER including the 2020 conference have been white, even when their talks have addressed racial justice. The visibility of invited speakers can send implicit messages about the culture of an organization, and who should be listened to ( Tulshyan, 2019; Hagan et al., 2020). The demographic composition of speakers at conferences can also affect the self-efficacy of participants by modeling what a successful researcher looks like and which producers of knowledge are viewed as legitimate ( Hagan et al., 2020; Settles et al., 2020). A survey of the SABER community conducted by the Keynote Speaker Committee ( Table 1) in 2019 indicated a clear interest in inviting a scholar for the 2020 annual SABER conference to talk about their research around issues of equity, inclusion, and racism, with implications for our own instructional practice. At the SABER 2020 conference, Dr. Elizabeth Canning shared her work on social-psychological interventions to support historically and currently marginalized students. The Keynote Speaker Committee developed a community survey to get an input about SABER community preferences for the 2021 keynote speaker. This committee intentionally conferred with the Diversity and Inclusion Committee on the content and wording of the survey to make the survey as inclusive as possible. Feedback from both the 2020 conference and the community survey for the 2021 SABER conference indicated a sustained interest in learning from scholars in the area of equity, inclusion, and racism and a recommendation to invite a POC as the keynote speaker. This specific action was addressed by the Keynote Speaker Committee; in 2021, the two invited key speakers included a Black woman, Dr. Saundra McGuire, who spoke about her research on metacognitive strategies for increasing STEM student success, with an anti-deficit lens on improving equity in the classroom, and a South Asian man, Dr. Niral Shah, who spoke about his research using poststructuralist frameworks to understand how racism affects the STEM learning experiences of students from minoritized groups.

Action 11: Provide Travel Scholarships for People of Color to Attend SABER 2021

Given that cost is often a motivating factor for attending a research conference ( Segarra et al., 2020b), the action group recommended increasing representation of POC at SABER by offering funding to defray the cost of conference attendance to first-time conference attendees. This was also highlighted in the post-conference survey responses in 2019 and findings from the 2020 SABER self-study. Since SABER 2021 was online again due to COVID-19, the only cost was registration. SABER offered registration fee waivers to individuals in the PEER Network who had not attended SABER previously. Additionally, the ROSE network offered waivers to attendees, with an emphasis on individuals who identified as POC, first-time attendees, community college faculty, and people from primarily undergraduate institutions. While we have not yet implemented a specific travel funding mechanism to increase POC attendance at the SABER national meeting, we have plans to establish a permanent travel award program for POC who are first-time SABER attendees.

Action 12: Host a Year-Long Virtual Seminar Series to Broaden Awareness of Issues Related to Systemic Racism in Academic Biology

All speakers in the fall 2020 series were POC, and all speakers in the spring 2021 series were women or genderqueer. The focus of the fall seminar series was on building awareness of issues related to racial injustices, particularly experienced by Black individuals, and the spring series broadened the scope to include inequities faced by LGBTQ+ individuals, low-income students, Indigenous students, and women. It was especially important to broaden the types of inequity discussed in the spring 2021 series because the effect of oppression can be amplified in individuals who identify with multiple marginalized identities ( Crenshaw, 1991). Some of the seminars were general discussions on topics that academic biologists may not be familiar with but ought to be aware of, including examples of systemic racism, how supposedly neutral language used to describe individuals can be offensive, and how racial microaggressions can create unwelcome and threatening situations in academic settings. The majority of the seminars were research presentations highlighting qualitative and quantitative data that demonstrated inequities in academic environments, and most of the work was done through the lens of critical frameworks. Notably, all of the research presenters were outside the SABER network of biology education researchers: we intentionally brought in new ideas and perspectives by identifying scholars outside of SABER who were working on issues related to diversity and inclusion. Most of the speakers were trained in sociology, psychology, and schools of education (as opposed to discipline-based education research), so they brought a different lens and scholarly focus to this work and to the SABER community.

Several institutions hosted their own local discussion groups to debrief the talks and consider how they could incorporate the ideas at their institution. Some of these have led to the formation of equity and inclusion committees or diversity, equity, and inclusion proposals to higher levels of administration. The series was so well-attended that SABER will continue to hold the series in the 2021-2022 academic year with an additional six talks focused on inclusion.

Discussion

These actions are just the first steps for SABER to grapple with systemic racism and were not intended, nor expected, to fully make the society antiracist. We acknowledge that organizational change takes time and coordinated effort. Further, we know that it is easy to revert to what is comfortable or familiar, which can make change temporary if it is not accompanied by structural changes to ensure diversity, equity, and inclusion. SABER is not unique in the challenges it faces in terms of equity and inclusion: other biology professional societies, which are older and more established than SABER, also face similar issues. For example, a report published by ASM's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Task Force noted that, while the society has demonstrated a commitment to diversity through initiatives like graduate fellowships to students of color, outreach activities to bring attention to issues of social justice and racism, and providing its staff with antiracism and anti-discrimination training, there remains a lack of diversity in leadership positions, and a significant proportion of ASM POC members feel that they do not have a voice within the society ( ASM Diversity, 2020). Black and Latinx members of American Physical Society reported feeling marginalized in the workplace more often than other groups ( Cech and Waidzunas, 2019).

Several practices can promote long-term and sustained changes to increase diversity, equity and inclusion: 1) centering voices from individuals who are underrepresented so they can help guide the direction, mission and vision of the organization, 2) supporting efforts to promote diverse representation in leadership positions, 3) mentoring programs to retain underrepresented individuals within the organization, and 4) reaching a critical mass of individuals from diverse backgrounds within the organization ( Allen-Ramdial and Campbell, 2014; Morris and Washington, 2017; Piggott and Cariaga-Lo, 2019; Segarra et al., 2020b; Madzima and MacIntosh, 2021). The 12 actions described in this article have initiated the process of long-term change by taking steps towards giving a voice to POC (through the creation of the PEER Network SIG, diversification of keynote speakers at the SABER annual meeting, and the creation of a seminar series focused on inclusion with speakers from marginalized identities), increasing diversity in the leadership of SABER, establishing mentoring programs for new and POC SABER members, expanding the networks through which the SABER conference is advertised, and providing financial support to POC to attend the SABER conference. To continue this process, we hope to enact the following measures: 1) expand current efforts to establish a welcoming environment for POC through mentoring programs and opportunities to network and socialize ( Madzima and MacIntosh, 2021), 2) increase fundraising efforts to augment the financial capacity of SABER to provide support to members of groups underrepresented in the society (e.g., conference registration waivers, travel funds), 3) continue and expand current efforts to reach new constituencies of individuals who might benefit from joining SABER, and 4) examine all aspects of the SABER organization and conference through a diversity lens to ensure it is inclusive, equitable, and a welcoming environment for all members ( Ali et al., 2021). We are interested in increasing POC representation within the SABER community and bringing our resources and scholarship to reimagine education as an equitable, antiracist experience. To this end, in the future the society might address this goal by initiatives including, but not limited to: 1) the incorporation of special sessions on classic liberatory education frameworks within the annual SABER meeting to learn from other cross-disciplinary scholars engaging in education and equity work (e.g., Gay, 2002; Giroux, 2010; Givens, 2021) and 2) SABER-sponsored programs that work with educators on social justice pedagogy at the postsecondary and secondary level, perhaps following the model for professional development developed by SABER West. The second of these would be crucial in developing a pathway and culture of inclusive discipline-based education research long before these careers are chosen at the graduate level.

We acknowledge that there is not a "one size fits all" approach to the journey of a professional society towards being more inclusive and equitable, and that change should be driven by the specific needs and challenges of a particular group of individuals. For this reason, we envision that SABER as a society should: 1) continue the reflections and conversations that began in earnest during the 2020 self-study, 2) continue to collect demographic data to investigate existing inequities and to make informed decisions about better supporting individuals from minoritized identities who are members of SABER, and 3) keep communication open through forums and surveys that both give a voice to all members and serve to "check in" on the success (or lack thereof) of initiatives geared to increase inclusion and diversity ( Cech and Waidzunas, 2019; ASM Diversity, 2020; Segarra et al., 2020b; Madzima and MacIntosh, 2021). As a society, we are making steady progress towards these goals: 1) the Executive Committee is planning to facilitate the attendance of POC faculty and faculty at MSIs, TCUs, and HBCUs at the 2022 SABER conference through awards that include funding for travel and a registration waiver. Beyond attracting a more diverse set of participants to the SABER conference, we are planning inclusive ways to support these individuals by making them an integral part of the conference activities through the PEER Network and the mentoring buddy system; 2) the Diversity and Inclusion Committee and the PEER Network SIG will annually survey the SABER membership and the members of the SIG, respectively, to collect data on existing inequities and the success of current initiatives and to inform future actions; 3) we will continue to collect demographic data society-wide through an annual SABER survey, and 4) the Diversity and Inclusion Committee is reaching out to past POC SABER participants to inquire about reasons they have not returned to SABER conferences, in an effort to identify barriers to participation.

Several climate reports and reflections by STEM professional societies have proposed the following recommendations to increase diversity and inclusion: 1) establishing and fostering open communication with members from minoritized groups, 2) providing greater and continued support and agency to POC individuals to not only retain them within the society, but to build a welcoming environment that these members see as valuable to them, 3) promoting greater diversity in positions of leadership reflective of the racial and ethnic composition of the society, 4) conducting yearly surveys of the membership to track the progress made towards inclusion and diversity, 5) engaging in outreach activities to support diversity on a wider scale, and 6) integrating programming on diversity and inclusion in conferences ( Cech and Waidzunas, 2019; Segarra et al., 2020a; ASM Diversity, 2020; Bell, 2020; Segarra et al., 2020b; Womack et al., 2020; Ali et al., 2021; Madzima and MacIntosh, 2021). The findings and recommendations of these climate surveys largely mirror the initial efforts to increase inclusion by SABER as well as those activities planned to sustain the initial work. There is one notable difference: the actions described in this manuscript arose organically through the work of many SABER members, and were not the product of a small group of people. The grassroots movement that began with the horrific death of a man at the hands of a police officer galvanized the membership of SABER and catalyzed change in our group within the span of a year. It is essential for scientific societies to identify ways in which they have neglected their POC members before taking action to rectify issues of inclusion and racism ( Ali et al., 2021). Recognizing with humility our shortcomings but utilizing the urgency of this event to propel change, we as a professional society know we are not alone in this endeavor as institutions across the nation and globally have also been seeking more profound steps toward lasting change. We hope that the process of open communication, iterative changes to organizational policy and initiatives, and a data-based approach to examining the success of SABER's actions will allow the organization to keep equity as not only a core value but also a lived philosophy.

Data Availability Statement

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/ Supplementary Materials, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Author Contributions

SR and MS-T conceived of the design of the manuscript. All authors participated in the writing of and editing of the manuscript. SR & MS-T - lead for PEER * BD sent the initial email, gave a talk in the series, co-organized book club on how to be an antiracist * SML is the current President of SABER and contributed to the Sense of Place committee and the SABER West town hall (second author) Alphabetical: * EB - posted solidarity statement, letters, and other D&I content on SABER website * LB-J - active D&I committee member * RB - served as a facilitator for the 2020 SABER book club How to Be an Antiracist * SB - helped lead the action group and the seminar series * NC - led sense of place committee, led initial creation of PEER * RD - participated in sense of place committee, member of mentoring committee 2019-2020, host of SABER game nights 2020 &amp; 2021 * SE - initiated the letters to the governor * MG-O - active D&I committee member * SG - led keynote committee and made sure to incorporate recommendations from action group * LG - D&I committee active member * LH - headed up mentoring committee.

Funding

We would like to thank Arizona State University's HHMI Inclusive Excellence Award, Arizona State University's Research for Inclusive STEM Education (RISE) Center, University of California Santa Barbara, SEISMIC collaboration, and Community College (CC) BioINSITES for funding the seminar series, as well as all of the speakers, people who introduced the speakers, hosts at institutions who helped to advertise the series, and all of the attendees. Finally, we are grateful for the financial support of SABER and the ROSE network grant (National Science Foundation Research Coordination Networks in Undergraduate Biology Education Grant No. 1826988 to SR) to help support fee waivers and National Science Foundation Grant No. 2109356 to SML and JKK to support some of the seminar speakers and future initiatives.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Acknowledgments

These actions would not have been possible without some funding and substantial time and effort by dedicated volunteers. We are grateful to so many people in the SABER community who have spent countless hours -- and continue to do so -- to try to make SABER more inclusive. Special thanks go out to the volunteers of the action group, the volunteer facilitators for the affinity groups, the members of Sense of Place Committee, the members of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee, the members of the Keynote Speaker Committee, the members of the Mentoring Committee, and the members of the Executive Committee whose leadership allowed us to make immediate changes, alter the programming of the summer conference, and fund the self-study out of SABER's budget. We appreciate all of the people who participated in the self-study, including those who completed surveys, attended an affinity group, or watched the presentation on diversity. We are grateful to the people who volunteered to facilitate the book club discussions and appreciate the people within the SABER community who attended the discussions.

Supplementary Material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2021.780401/full#supplementary-material

Footnotes

1 We capitalize Black and People of Color (POC) but not white in this manuscript. This is in accordance with current Associated Press (AP) style standards that recognizes that there is a shared history, culture, and discrimination based on skin color for Black individuals or People of Color, but there is not the same shared experience for white individuals. Further, white is not capitalized to avoid legitimizing white supremacist beliefs. However, there is disagreement here and some scholars and organizations advocate for white to be capitalized ( https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-cultures-race-and-ethnicity-us-news-ap-top-news-7e36c00c5af0436abc09e051261fff1f).

References

Garcia, J., Sanchez, D., Wout, D., Carter, E., and Pauker, K. (2019). Society of Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) Diversity and Climate Survey. Available at: https://spsp.org/sites/default/files/SPSP_Diversity_and_Climate_Survey_Final_Report_January_2019.pdf (Accessed August 20, 2021).
Google Scholar

Tulshyan, R. (2019). What it Will Take To Improve Diversity At Conferences. Harvard Business Review.
Google Scholar

Vasquez Heilig, J., Wong Flores, I., Barros Souza, A., Barry, J., and Barceló Monroy, S. (2019). Considering the Ethnoracial and Gender Diversity of Faculty in United States College and University Intellectual Communities. Hispanic J. L. Pol. 1 (2), 1-31.
Google Scholar

Keywords: inclusion, diversity, antiracism, biology professional societies, professional development

Citation: Segura-Totten M, Dewsbury B, Lo SM, Bailey EG, Beaster-Jones L, Bills RJ, Brownell SE, Caporale N, Dunk R, Eddy SL, García-Ojeda ME, Gardner SM, Green LE, Hartley L, Harrison C, Imad M, Janosik AM, Jeong S, Josek T, Kadandale P, Knight J, Ko ME, Kukday S, Lemons P, Litster M, Lom B, Ludwig P, McDonald KK, McIntosh ACS, Menezes S, Nadile EM, Newman SL, Ochoa SD, Olabisi O, Owens MT, Price RM, Reid JW, Ruggeri N, Sabatier C, Sabel JL, Sato BK, Smith-Keiling BL, Tatapudy SD, Theobald EJ, Tripp B, Pradhan M, Venkatesh MJ, Wilton M, Warfa AM, Wyatt BN and Raut SA (2021) Chronicling the Journey of the Society for the Advancement in Biology Education Research (SABER) in its Effort to Become Antiracist: From Acknowledgement to Action. Front. Educ. 6:780401. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2021.780401

Received: 21 September 2021; Accepted: 02 November 2021;
Published: 08 December 2021.

Reviewed by:

Ginger Shultz, University of Michigan, United States
Patrice Martin, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, United States

Copyright © 2021 Segura-Totten, Dewsbury, Lo, Bailey, Beaster-Jones, Bills, Brownell, Caporale, Dunk, Eddy, García-Ojeda, Gardner, Green, Hartley, Harrison, Imad, Janosik, Jeong, Josek, Kadandale, Knight, Ko, Kukday, Lemons, Litster, Lom, Ludwig, McDonald, McIntosh, Menezes, Nadile, Newman, Ochoa, Olabisi, Owens, Price, Reid, Ruggeri, Sabatier, Sabel, Sato, Smith-Keiling, Tatapudy, Theobald, Tripp, Pradhan, Venkatesh, Wilton, Warfa, Wyatt and Raut. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Samiksha A. Raut, sraut@uab.edu

† These authors share first authorship

People also looked at

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Chronicling the Journey of the Society for the Advancement in Biology Education Research (SABER) in its Effort to Become Antiracist: From Acknowledgement to Action

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The tragic murder of Mr. George Floyd brought to the head long-standing issues of racial justice and equity in the United States and beyond. This prompted many institutions of higher education, including professional organizations and societies, to engage in long-overdue conversations about the role of scientific institutions in perpetuating racism.

# data[].attributes.body
https://bulletin.appliedtransstudies.org/article/2/1-2/4/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Interpreting Malicious Responses to an Online Questionnaire about Transgender Undergraduate Engineering and Computer Science Student Experiences

Andrea Haverkamp , Finn Johnson , Michelle K. Bothwell , Qwo-Li Driskill , Devlin Montfort

Online research that solicits participation from marginalized communities or is conducted by scholars of marginalized identities may be targeted by individuals who intend to tamper with the study outcomes and/or harass the researchers. Our goal is to identify and interpret malicious responses recorded in a first-of-its-kind national questionnaire for transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) students in undergraduate engineering and computer science programs. Data categorized as malicious (50 of the 349 total responses) contained slurs, hate speech, or direct targeting of the research team. The data was coded inductively and discursively interpreted through social justice frameworks. The responses contained homophobic, transphobic, ableist, anti-Black, antisemitic, and anti-Indigenous content. Online memes associated with white nationalist and fascist movements were present throughout the data, alongside memes and content referencing gaming and "nerd" culture. Malicious responses can provide critical insight into the social conditions in STEM education. In application, we call for researchers to critically analyze, rather than discard, malicious data to shed light on these phenomena and generate empowering "counterspeech" to confront hate and reclaim agency. These findings show that social justice STEM education must include perspectives on online hate radicalization and center anti-colonial, intersectional solidarity organizing as its opposition.

Volume (Issue)

2(1-2)

Published

June 30, 2023

DOI

10.57814/qd1y-9b22

Copyright

© 2023. The Authors. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Preferred Citation

Haverkamp, Andrea, Johnson, Finn, Bothwell, Michelle K., Driskill, Qwo-Li, Montfort, Devlin. 2023. "Attack Helicopters and White Supremacy: Interpreting Malicious Responses to an Online Questionnaire about Transgender Undergraduate Engineering and Computer Science Student Experiences." Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies 2 (1-2): 67-94. https://doi.org/10.57814/qd1y-9b22

Many academics are pleased to receive emails from strangers interested in their research. The authors of this paper have been particularly thrilled to receive warm words from engineering education and transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) community members over the course of a project to provide insight into the experiences of TGNC students in engineering and computer science. Shortly after the launch of the project, however, a member of our research team opened her email to find a different type of feedback:

Subject: TGNC Resiliency Question

... I believe that is what is wrong with higher education. Students should be taught to focus on their chosen field and not their gender. In my program I'm sure there are students that fall into the categories you are researching, but their performance is how they are judged. Stop trying to push gender and convince people that they are more important or discriminated against because how they identify. Let people choose their own path and don't force them into fields because you think a group isn't represented enough. In today's world people can be what they want to be regardless of their gender or race, all you're doing is propagating a stereotype and pushing a divide between groups. Also, the fact that you are funded by the NSF is an enormous waste and not science, that money could be used for real research that could actually better things.

Good luck with your research,

[Name Redacted]

In retrospect, and compared to other communications we received, this email is relatively kind. There were a handful of other direct emails to our research team, but slurs and hate speech poured into our online outreach questionnaire when it was distributed nationally. The malicious words and slurs directed towards our research team had a profound impact on morale and mental health, particularly for one of our graduate student researchers, who was the primary data analyst. As a transgender woman who was already in therapy for anxiety and depression regarding online anti-trans rhetoric, managing the study's data collection caused significant personal distress, and time had to be taken off the project to heal from traumatic harm.

This paper interprets the online backlash against our research, particularly as it appeared in the questionnaire data, and relates the hate speech we received to larger trends of online radicalization into white supremacist and fascist conspiracy movements. Rather than exclude this data in our research, we argue that malicious responses must be taken into account. To quietly discard these responses due to their harmful intent is a disservice to a project aimed at transforming engineering culture, as such responses reflect the social and educational context in which traditionally excluded students and scholars experience oppression, silencing, and violence. Our goal is to better understand how these responses relate to engineering culture by framing them within larger social contexts-namely, the rise of online fascism.

Background

This paper is situated within a national multi-phase research project specifically exploring the experiences of TGNC students in engineering education and computer science. In the broader project, queer and trans studies frameworks are used to form discipline-specific understandings of how student experiences are shaped by gender, racial, political, and professional identities (Cech and Waidzunas, 2011; Cech, 2013; Haverkamp et al. 2021; Tonso, 2014).

The project's initial phase was an outreach questionnaire directed toward TGNC undergraduate engineering and computer science students in the U.S. The instrument was composed of numerical and open-ended text box questions probing students' perceptions of gender, engineering education culture, and communities of support. Online outreach was chosen as the first activity for two reasons: first, online questionnaire and survey-based methods are effective in gathering many participants from small-number populations. The number of TGNC engineering or computer science students at a single institution is likely small, given that transgender-identified individuals are approximately 0.6% of the general population (Flores et al. 2016). Second, transgender-identified students spend more time online compared to their peers (Stolzenberg and Hughes 2017). This may be attributed to the internet offering readily accessible TGNC "counterpublic" social spaces for belonging, name and gender recognition, emotional care, and identity affirmation when compared to physical public spaces (Cavalcante 2016).

We began writing this paper in 2020, before some of the major events of the last few years, including the COVID-19 crisis, the move of conspiracy theories such as QAnon into mainstream discourse, the attempted coup and fascist insurrection of January 6, 2021, the overturning of reproductive rights by the Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, legislative attacks on TGNC children and youth and their health care providers, new waves of book banning, and restrictions against K-university educators in states such as Florida in discussing issues of racism, transphobia, homophobia, and sexism. Before these events, it was disturbingly clear to our research team that the malicious responses could not be dismissed and indicated that discussions of gender and sexuality in STEM education are flashpoints for fascist ideologues living "inside the house" of engineering and computer science. Tellingly, earlier versions of this paper submitted to journals in engineering education were ultimately rejected, not because of the quality of the research itself, but because of "fit." We were left with the impression that our arguments concerning the necessity of addressing fascist ideologies within the cultural contexts that TGNC students endure was seen as irrelevant to engineering education, if not alarmist. Ultimately, we continued with this paper in order to raise awareness and, further, call for researchers in engineering education to take malicious responses seriously in order to better understand the contexts of TGNC students' experiences in engineering and interrupt fascist ideologies inside and outside of our academic programs.

Gender and engineering education research

It has been established that engineering culture presents barriers to the inclusion of women, people of color, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) individuals in higher education and the workplace (Fouad et al. 2017; Gregory 2015; Linley et al. 2018; Logel et al. 2009). In 2019, 77.5% of bachelor's degrees in engineering and computer science were granted to men, and 60.7% were awarded to white graduates (ASEE 2020). The number of women in architectural or engineering occupations is just 16.5%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and 78% of total workers in this category are white (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2021). These barriers remain culturally embedded in engineering despite decades of funded intensive reform and inclusion efforts. Research on gender in engineering and computer science education has predominantly remained within a cisgender, gender binary, Eurocentric framework for many years, but work that integrates the intersectionality of race and gender is becoming increasingly visible (Haverkamp et al. 2021).

Online harassment and radicalization

While TGNC students may spend more time online due to supportive internet communities, this does not mean the internet is a safe place for TGNC people. In fact, TGNC individuals navigate an online culture of targeted harassment, which exists parallel to widespread offline marginalization. Almost every trans individual (97.6%) in a recent study reported witnessing persistent negative social media and news articles about the community, which strongly correlates to broadly reported experiences of depression, anxiety, and distress (Hughto et al. 2021). A comprehensive three-and-a-half-year study further discovered that 15% of all transgender-related comments on social media were blatantly transphobic, weaponizing slurs against TGNC individuals (Haynes 2019). Another study analyzed the highest-performing social media content on TGNC topics and found that politically right-wing or anti-transgender sources account for 65.7% of all top-performing content, compared to 15.4% of top-performing content from LGBTQI+ sources (January 2020).

Transphobic and homophobic harassment online has the potential to extend into academic research focused on these communities. The term "mischievous responder" has been coined to describe respondents who falsely claim to be part of a survey's intended audience to provide extreme or untruthful responses to alter the research outcomes (Robinson-Cimpian 2014). Several studies on LGTBQI+ topics have noted mischievous responders. In one example, mischievous responder data (1% of the total) in a large data set ( N=148,960) altered the measurement of LGBTQI+-heterosexual youth health disparities by as much as 46% (Cimpian et al. 2018). A study within engineering education presented at the Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity 2019 conference recorded data from mischievous responders as well, much of which contained overt hate speech (Boudreau et al. 2019). In that paper's case study, an all-campus survey regarding gender-neutral restrooms received 880 survey responses and 50% were identified as negative, with a transgender undergraduate student describing these comments as "hateful and violent." (Boudreau et al. 2019, 9). We use the word malicious over the word mischievous when discussing such data to recognize malintent rather than playfulness. Our concern is that what occurred in our study, and as could be reasonably predicted in Boudreau and colleagues (2019), has been occurring without note or acknowledgment in engineering education research for years and continues to occur. The consequences of targeted harassment against TGNC researchers in STEM, which occur silently or hidden, cause researchers to feel isolated, and the harassment may discourage them from persisting in the field. Ignoring malicious responder data and incidents of targeted harassment contributes to the already documented chilly, unwelcoming climate in STEM for marginalized academics. Instead, we call on researchers to pay close attention to malicious responses as data that elucidate the lived experiences of TGNC students and scholars in STEM. To dismiss such statements and harassment as "mischievous" ignores the context of fascist movements taking place in the U.S. in which TGNC students find themselves in the crosshairs of violent white nationalist extremists.

STEM fields such as computer science and programming share workplace and recreational proximity to online subcultures including video gaming and "nerd-dom" which similarly present barriers to those not within a white, cis male, heterosexual norm (Starr 2018). While not inherently white nationalist (and indeed, can offer potent rebukes to such ideologies), these are locations where the issue of radicalization into white supremacist and white nationalist movements is endemic. Of concern to STEM education is the fact that online white supremacist and white nationalist groups frequently recruit from online gaming/tech/nerd communities where they find fruitful connections through white "geek" identity and the militarized straight cis masculinity represented in popular video game media (Kline et al. 2003, 246-68; Shaw 2014, 13-51).

White supremacy and white nationalism are related, often overlapping, yet not synonymous. White supremacy is a system of oppression that maintains cultural, ideological, epistemological, and political control of people of color through "direct processes that secure (white) domination and the privileges associated with it." (Leonardo 2004, 137) White supremacy can be subtle or overt, but it is ubiquitous in the United States of America. White nationalism is the belief that an all-white Christian ethnostate must be created through the removal of "others" through citizenship denial, deportation, and genocide (Flanagan, Acee, and Schubiner 2019, 6). White nationalism fixates on the nation-state and processes to create a racially pure ethnostate through the creation and subjugation of racial "others." Such ideologies are always inseparable from constructions of gender, sexuality, and disability within white nationalist claims to genetic superiority, with epistemic origins as far back as the Crusades and Spanish Inquisition, which used violence and forced conversions of Jews, Muslims, and Indigenous peoples to regulate citizenship across racial-ethnic boundaries (Dunbar-Ortiz, 2003; Friedlander 1995).

Online radicalization and recruitment occur on a constellation of websites, from 4chan, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, the "manosphere" (men's rights and misogynist forums), and conspiracy theory news sites (Nagle 2017). Social communities on these websites collectively form a pipeline of sorts, where algorithms intended to increase engagement or "clicks" funnel users into increasingly extreme content and tactics. This pipeline is not composed of a single app or site, but rather affects a person's whole ecosystem of internet use and social media. Adherents to various hate movements or ideologies eventually meet and integrate members of one group into another, forming allied commitments towards radical reactionary racial, gender, and political agendas. For example, women are present in neo-Nazi groups, despite the antifeminist and male-orientation of these ideologies, due to a shared racist agenda (Blee 1996). Weisman (2018) illustrates this phenomenon occurring online using an example of strangers becoming friends on an online game chatroom through sharing antifeminist memes. Through this friendship, an individual who had not been aware of antisemitic conspiracy theories may become introduced and radicalized towards those views and drawn into communities with shared antisemitic and antifeminist views through this new connection.

Misogynist communities such as "men's rights," "red pill," and "pick up artist" communities often directly overlap with white supremacist communities, consisting of primarily straight cisgender white men who build community partially through the harassment of women, people of color, and LGBTQI+ people (Condis 2018; McLean and Griffiths 2019; Nagle 2017). A significant number of online gaming community members experience sexist, racist, transphobic, white supremacist, and conspiratorial discourse-which harms marginalized communities and builds a sense of community-dominance by straight, white men (Easpaig 2018, TaeHyuk, and Hearnes, 2021). One study found that over 80% of gamers have witnessed identity-based harassment online, and that roughly 10% will be exposed to white supremacy, Holocaust denial, and conspiracies surrounding COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter (Anti-Defamation League, 2020).

Far-right adherents deflect criticism by writing off their digital hate-signaling as playful trolling and edgy memes. As Cynthia Miller-Idriss (2020, 151-2) observes,

one reason the new ecosystem of online spaces has been so effective in spurring growth in the far right has to do with the entertainment value of social media and the ways that humor has been weaponized, especially through the creation and circulation of memes, jokes, and emoji. The far right has figured out that young people are motivated not only by serious, planned action but also by spontaneous and humorous engagement.

Harassment from online gaming and tech communities translates to real-world danger for women and marginalized groups through in-person threats and releases of addresses and personal information (doxxing). Three mass shooters in 2019 left manifestos littered with specific references to racist, antisemitic, and sexist memes common on gaming and tech-centered forums such as 4chan, 8chan, and Reddit. They were part of a growing number of mass shooters who announce their shootings on forums and/or livestream the violence (Dewey 2014; Harwell 2019; Quinlan 2019; Wells and Lovett 2019).

Paying attention to when, where, and how students in STEM are drawn into radicalization pathways online is clearly necessary. Studies that assist STEM education researchers in better understanding these pathways will better equip us to understand the depth and scope of the issue and find ways to intervene.

Methodologies and Conceptual Frameworks

Social justice methodologies operate through a lens of "tackling seemingly intractable issues" through frameworks that extend "beyond the mere ability to collect, interpret and communicate data" to "create the conditions for social justice" (Gwyther and Possamai-Inesedy 2009, 97). We use antifascist and trans/queer methodologies to transform the raw data from a collection of malicious responses into results that can assist researchers in understanding and untangling the interconnected knots of the social, political, and cultural context of the data surrounding TGNC students in order to make effective interventions and transformations to our programs and institutions.

Antifascist methodologies

Fascism perpetuates itself through a cycle of growth, obtaining power, splintering, and then moving back towards growth. Paxton details this theory of fascism-as-process through a five-stage model, summarized below by Ross (Paxton 1998; Ross 2016, 15):

1. A movement-building base dedicated to creating a "new order"

2. A process of rooting in the political system

3. Obtaining power

4. Exercising power

5. Either entering a decline period or a period of compromise called "entropy," or a radicalization by hardcore fascist groups who advocate a "second revolution."

Antifascist methodologies attend to and challenge fascist ideologies and movements in research frameworks and data, and expose the overlap among them.

Queer/trans methodologies

Research on equity in engineering education has been called to use theories of power that move beyond institutional policy or individual bad actor models (Riley et al. 2009). We answer this call through the use of critical trans and queer methodologies. Trans and queer methodologies are interdisciplinary, addressing multi-faceted mechanisms of power through engaging in cross-disciplinary politics, methods, relationships, and intellectual structures (Pryse 2000). If "to queer" is to destabilize normativity and the nature of knowledge and its power-as-universal-truth, then a "queer" methodology will destabilize traditional research trajectories and act as an interpretive project (Browne and Nash 2010; Crawley, Whitlock, and Earles, 2021). It follows, then, that

transing is a practice that takes place within, as well as across or between, gendered spaces. It is a practice that assembles gender into contingent structures of association with other attributes of bodily being, and that allows for their reassembly. (Stryker, Currah, and Moore 2008, 13)

Trans and queer methodologies position discourse as a primary mode through which power permeates society. Discourse is a linguistic process that upholds power through legitimizing institutions while also constructing differences such as sexual, racial, and gender categories (Browne and Nash 2010; Foucault 1978). Interpreting discourse, even between trans people ourselves, allows for a critique of what is seen, felt, or perceived as hegemonic truths in their specific social context (Zitz et al. 2014). Language not only has power but constructs and reproduces power itself. We view the malicious responses to our study as data, fragments of discourse that can reveal how power constructs itself and operates.

Single identity models, such as an analysis that positions TGNC undergraduate student experiences as unconnected to race, class, ability, or sexuality, reflect an epistemology of Eurocentric masculinist thought and obscures the multiplicity of identities and experiences of TGNC people and people of color. Patricia Hill-Collins (1990, 293) argues that

viewing domination itself as encompassing intersecting oppressions of race, class, gender, sexuality, and nation points to the significance of these oppressions in shaping the overall organization of a particular matrix of domination. Similarly, personal identities constructed around individual understandings of race, class, gender, sexuality, and nation define each individual's unique biography.

Using a Black feminist thought framework, we seek to prevent TGNC identity from becoming a detached genre of singular identity, or subsumed into a supposed universality of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer experiences. Gender and trans identities cut across sexualities relating distinct discourses, communities, issues, practices, and lifestyles (Stryker 2014).

Gender and trans identities are constructed by and through race, with whiteness shaping dominant norms of gender embodiment. Discursively categorizing Black bodies as subordinate, for instance, was critical in "maintaining the biopolitical ordering of slavery" and continues to undergird Black experiences with trans identity (Snorton 2017, 104). Racialized conceptions of "masculinity" and "femininity" further cast all non-white trans individuals into disproportionate doubt and invalidation. This occurs in a myriad of ways, such as the contemporary objectifying mystique of Asian transgender bodies in dominant culture or the colonization of Indigenous gender/sexual embodiments into prevailing colonial gender regimes (Driskill et al. 2011). Trans and queer methodologies in STEM education research must ultimately recognize the power of discourse upon the construction of gender and its deep enmeshment with racial subjugation. Our methodological frameworks do not attempt to remain "objective" in our analysis of our data. Instead, we are rooted within research methodologies that contribute to the practice of "research justice," which Andrew Jolivette (2015, 5), defines as "examin[ing] the relationships and intersections between research, knowledge construction, and political power/legitimacy in society."

Method

Malicious responses to research on marginalized students in engineering education should be analyzed as vital to an analysis of the context of their experiences. Towards this end, we combine qualitative and quantitative methods through inductive coding, thematic interpretation, and TGNC undergraduate research participant input to interpret the malicious responses to our outreach questionnaire. The instrument explored student skillsets and strengths, sources of community and support, and their favorite aspects of engineering and computer science.

Recording of data

A Qualtrics questionnaire with 16 Likert-scale items and 7 open-text prompts focusing on students' perceptions of their skills, support, and resiliency was created. Demographic questions regarding gender, disability, and race/ethnicity were included. The questionnaire link was distributed to over 3,000 email addresses of department chairs, program administrators, and faculty at accredited engineering bachelor's degree-granting institutions. A total of N = 723 responses were recorded.

Criteria for invalid, malicious, and valid data

The responses were exported into Excel for sorting and cleaning. Validity criteria were established to develop datasets for the research project and identify which respondents would receive a $5 Amazon.com gift card as compensation. We did not intend to separate any complete responses into a "malicious" category until faced with the problems of harm to the research team and potential skewing of outcomes. Reading the data participant by participant, the malicious responses were often immediately and viscerally identifiable. The general sorting criteria are described in Table 1.
Table 1. Criteria for questionnaire data categorization

Did not Agree to Consent.

Did not select they identified as TGNC.

Did not select they are an undergraduate engineering or computer science student.

Did not answer all fields (incomplete).

Answer contained slur, hate speech, or mocked research/researcher.

Answer implied bad faith (i.e., direct mention of gift cards or memes).

Inductive thematic coding

Data categorized as malicious was imported into ATLAS.ti. An inductive coding approach was used to highlight specific themes and form connections throughout the range of malicious responder data (Thomas 2006). Multiple read-throughs of the data both by column (question) and by row (respondent) were performed. Thematic analysis informed our team's "identifying, analyzing, and reporting patterns within the data" (Braun and Clarke 2006, 79). Emergent results were discussed and revised iteratively. Two primary upper-level codes were created: culture and identity. Culture referred to political commentary, internet subculture, perspective on higher education, or expressed ideologies. Identity referred to specific social identities targeted, marginalized, or referenced (e.g., race, ability, gender).

Virtual research community input

Thirty-six participants, categorized as valid responders to the questionnaire, accepted an invitation to join a virtual research community on the Slack platform. The space allowed for input beyond the one-time initial outreach questionnaire and provided a supportive space where the unique intersection of TGNC experience meets the engineering undergraduate experience. TGNC students in the virtual community were offered an opportunity to help the research team analyze and make sense of the malicious responder data. Student participants were warned that the data contained violent terminology and harmful, triggering language. Students that opted into the smaller private Slack channel discussing malicious responders were provided with de-identified versions of the demographic data and an Excel sheet of the malicious responses. A multi-month, online conversation ensued, prompted at random intervals by specific questions.

Students involved in the analysis, particularly those who spend time on forums such as Tumblr, Reddit, and 4chan, or engage online games, provided perspectives into the meanings and motivations of the malicious responders, and provided context for online subculture slang. While input from this group was relatively unstructured and informal and was not used as an augmenting data set in and of itself, it did help refine the research team's understanding of the malicious data. Drafts of this manuscript were also reviewed by this subgroup of the virtual community, and their constructive feedback was integrated.

Representing hate speech

We present our data mostly verbatim, including words that are broadly understood as demeaning, disturbing, and hateful. Some words, however, have been redacted in consideration of the positionality of the research team. Andrea Haverkamp is Jewish, transgender, queer, and white. Finn Johnson is white, transgender, queer, and disabled, and Michelle Bothwell is white, cisgender, queer, and disabled. Qwo-Li Driskill is light-skinned, multiracial (Indigenous/Black/white), queer, trans feminine, and disabled, and Devlin Montfort is white, transgender, and queer. We have redacted the n-word from the malicious comment data in this paper. As Stewart writes, "who benefits from seeing that word, unredacted? I assure you it is not Black people" (Stewart 2016). The decision to retain homo- and transphobic words is intentional, as they shape the communities and histories of our queer and trans team members and are deeply entwined with the systems of power under study. We do not wish to perpetuate the harm done through these responses but rather leave them intact to bear witness to the realities of our lives. Censoring or hiding these words in this research area limits our collective ability to dismantle them more broadly in social justice work and may counterintuitively add to their power. Here, we document this problematic speech, critique its origins and impact, and advocate for action (Saldaña and Omasta 2017). Last, the terms "hate," "hateful," and the term "hate speech" in this paper should not imply simple or irrational emotion. We use these terms as shorthand for serious and focused negative prejudice enacted verbally, non-verbally, and symbolically by those with social or political power, which can further 1) rally support by similar ideological adherents and/or 2) incite or perform physical, emotional, or relational harm upon the subject community in private or in public (Paz, Montero-Díaz, and Moreno-Delgado 2020). Eli Clare (2017), on the importance of trigger warnings, notes that "in the late 1980s and 1990s, feminists developed the practice of trigger warnings to give people a heads up before details of violence were spoken out loud." Clare uses the specific language of "trigger warnings" to "reflect the abrupt, visceral tailspin some of us experience when encountering or being caught off guard by particular images or stories..." The following sections contain virulent and malicious responses to our study. We advise that the reader take great care in reading the following sections.

Results

Total responses ( N = 723) were separated into three categories: i) 299 responses from TGNC undergraduate students in engineering education; ii) 50 malicious responses; and iii) 374 invalid or incomplete responses. Malicious responders accounted for about 15% of the questionnaire's responses.

Demographics

The demographics of the 50 malicious respondents are presented in Table 2. Throughout the rest of the paper, quotations from responses will be attributed to the respondent number from this table. Of note is that 12 respondents (24%) indicated their gender as being related to a helicopter or aircraft and that 15 of the 30 reporting disabilities (50%) referred to transgender identity or sexuality as a disability. Viewing this table gives an immediate snapshot of the tone and tenor of the malicious responses and the interplay between gender, sexuality, race, and ability. Here are a few examples of demographics that show this interplay:

#2 - Aerosol [Gender], Afro/Klingon-Asiatic Galapogayation [Race], Being 2.86% White [Disability]

#17 - Airplane [Gender], Native American (Elizabeth Warren) [Race], Transgenderism [Disability]

#24 - Fucking white male [Gender] I'm a Swedish Muslim [Race], My country is run by communists [Disability]

#31 - pansexual attack helicopter [Gender], kangz [Race], intracranial lead deficiency [Disability]

Primary Themes

The following sections outline major patterns found in the responses. Select quotations are provided, along with their associated questions, as examples of how these patterns appeared in the data. Our methodology explicitly calls attention to the multiplicity of constructed identities that are subjugated across race, gender, citizenship status, religion, disability, and sexuality.
Table 2. Demographics of the malicious respondents
Responding to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)

Respondents frequently mentioned DEI efforts, and affirmative action, with one referring to "privilege point systems" (#41). Programs that seek to promote equity and inclusion may be perceived by these respondents as antithetical to ideologies of meritocracy. Many of the comments along this theme were fairly succinct, stating that "this is bullshit" (#39) or that "a degree has nothing to do with gender" (#31).

What are your strengths and skills in engineering and computer science classrooms or projects?
I am trans obviously I will have a job regardless of my skills thanks to diversity quotas inspired by surveys such as these. - #15

I don't actually have any skills I'm just a diversity "affirmative action" student. - #43
Are there any comments that you would like to share with the research team?
While I of course do not condone bullying or discrimination, I wish people in universities (especially the faculty) would not focus so much on gender and identity. That doesn't matter. Just let people do their thing and teach them how to do Gauss eliminations and whatnot. - #47

Please do some research on something that will actually benefit the human race. This notion that these quacks are normal is crazy. Honestly, they make engineering courses more a pain in the ass. Why cant they just sit down and learn the material like the rest of us and stop making everything about themselves? - #5

How on earth did this study get funding??? - #13

These responses, alongside the emails we received, communicated to our research team that the respondents not only thought our specific TGNC research project was unnecessary but that this study was one aspect of a larger social problem. This reflects claims made by political conservatives, which argue that equity research and policies are a legitimate and immediate concern in academia. The community act of making this claim constructs this as a part of their social reality, regardless of the evidence (Best 2018).

It is important to make clear here that (1) "diversity quotas" are against the law and do not exist in the U.S., and (2) Affirmative Action is not a quota system and its policies do not apply to LGBTQI+ communities. This is one of many places where we can see issues of race deeply entwined with issues of gender and sexuality. Attacks on Affirmative Action are racialized and implicitly anti-Black, as the historic and ongoing exclusion of Black people is a specific legacy Affirmative Action was implemented to address.

Gender binary discourse

Respondents promoted an immutable biological gender-sex binary through their commentary on gender. The most overt was respondent #11 putting "There are only two genders" into every open-text comment field, with similar wording provided by respondents #17, 31, and 39.

Are there any comments that you would like to share with the research team?
Transgenderism and Modern Gender Theory are a manufactured entity created out of a desire to help people, but are factually incorrect and deny any of the unique and valuable differences between men and women that should be celebrated, not taught as falsehoods in order to eliminate any distinctions. Facts don't care about your feelings, and neither do most Americans. They care about getting a good job and providing for their families, not pandering tendency and neglect of moral or personal responsibility. - #4

Your research is Bullshit and there is no such think [sic] and nonbinary genders you're either male or female with the rare exception of someone born with both which is probably a result of a genetic disorder therefor if someone thinks they are born in the wrong body they have a mental disorder. -#27
Do you have friends, classmates or family who support your success in engineering as it relates to your race, sexuality, disability status, religious affiliation, or other identities? If so, how do they provide support for you in your engineering program?
I really can't be bothered at this point. You're ruining genuine scientific disciplines here. There are two genders, male and female. If an engineer creates a bolt and a nut but then whimsically labels them, then they're not that great of an engineer. - #29

The marginalization of TGNC people through a rigid gender binary is closely related to the marginalization of intersex people through the simplification of gender into two binary categories of sexual difference. Roughly 1/100 humans have intersex characteristics and the notion that physical sex confers inherent immutable gender difference is increasingly recognized as outdated and false (Joel 2011).

Anti-trans, anti-queer

Many comments targeted TGNC individuals and their community. Trans and queer people were referenced with hostility, anger, resentment, denial of validity, and tropes such as pedophilia and sexual predatory behavior. Some responses were short-issuing slurs such as "shemale" or "tranny" or calling themselves (feigning TGNC identity) "degenerate" or "repulsive." Demographics listed in Table 2 provide a window into the respondents' perceptions of gender and sexuality. Reported genders range from those similar to expected TGNC respondents (e.g., trans male, nonbinary queer, female, agender) to those outright ridiculing TGNC identity (e.g., non-cookie-cutter cis-furry dragonkin, non-binary intersectional African Mohammedian Feminist, pedophile).

Do you have friends, classmates or family who support your success in engineering as it relates to your race, sexuality, disability status, religious affiliation, or other identities? If so, how do they provide support for you in your engineering program?
No lol I'm a social outcast transsexual who the fuck would actually hang out with me - #15
What is your favorite part of engineering & computer science programs & student culture?
I love that everybody misgenders me. I have a mental disorder and they are constantly reminding me to snap out of it. -#26

Faggots -#34

The hate for faggots -#24

The sex hehe. -#53
What are your strengths outside of your engineering program (i.e., at home, in your community, during free time, within friendships, and beyond)?
My strength is my ability to rape women with the strength of a man but pretending to have the body of a woman. It's not cross dressing, mom!!! - #28
Are there any comments that you would like to share with the research team?
Pedosexual rights are the next step in the never ending march of poz and degeneracy and fathers who won't let people from the pedosexual community have sexual relations with their children are bigots and might as well join the KKK. -#43

The term "poz," used by respondent #43, is shorthand for HIV-positive. This shorthand was first used by the HIV-positive community itself but has been appropriated by hate groups online to refer to LGBTQI+ people. Taken in context these responses highlight the respondents' conflation of gender with sexuality, and gender diversity with mental illness, rape, disease, and child abuse.

Anti-Blackness, Anti-Indigeneity, and racialization

The backlash to TGNC students and their inclusion is an inherently racist backlash due to the intersectionality of race and gender. There are implicit racist assumptions and explicit racist rhetoric in contemporary anti-transgender movements, alongside ideological partnerships with the Far Right, and reflected in the malicious responder data (Pearce, Erikainen, and Vincent 2020, 680).

Racial and ethnic identity demographics displayed in Table 2 demonstrate that racial references and racism are deeply embedded in the malicious responses, particularly anti-Blackness. The respondents were not satisfied by simply listing "Black" as their race. Instead, it was often compounded with additional terms such as "Black Hispanic Jew," "Blasian," "Hispanic latina, native American, black" among others visible in Table 2. Mixing of races and ethnicities in the demographic data reflects one of white supremacy's primary fears: the diluting of whiteness resulting in anti-mixed racism.

Being both Black and trans is constructed by white dominated society as a "seemingly impossible positionality" due to the complex intersections of race and gender (Nicolazzo 2017, 69). Snorton argues that the "condensation of transness into the category of transgender is a racial narrative" predicated on the privileging of white gender narratives while simultaneously ungendering and excluding Black bodies from the construction of cis/trans (Snorton 2017, 8). Further, the racialization of Blackness and gender is imprinted with ownership, animalization, and bestialization (Gossett 2017). When a respondent maliciously writes one's race as Black, this signals an ideology in which Black trans bodies are constructed as both impossible, and not fully human.

Anti-Black online netspeak and "digital Blackface" was present throughout the data. This is contemporary online parody, spectacle, and role play which commodifies a performance of Black culture and language, reflecting racial dynamics of 19^th^ century Blackface minstrelsy (Matamoros-Fernández 2020). The online slang term "kangz" was used by 7 (14%) of the respondents. This term is shorthand for an online anti-Black phrase "we was kangz," or "we were kings," which is a pejorative diminishment of Black history on the African continent. Respondent #38 filled every single text box available with anti-Black slurs or stereotypes such as "I eat fried chicken NOMISAYIN AHAHHA" or the word "kangz"-never once explicitly touching upon the subject of gender.

Indigenous people are also targeted in the data, reflecting historical and ongoing discursive and state violence against Indigenous gender systems to justify genocide through the exertion of biopower. Chris Finley argues that "biopower defines the colonization of Native peoples when it makes sexuality, gender, and race key arenas of the power of the settler state" (Finley, 2011, 31). Table 2 presents diminishing demographics such as the slur "Eskimo," "Colored Native Mix w/opressed (sic) ancestors," and "Two-spirited demiqueer n*faggot attack helicopter kin." It is notable that the specific descriptor of an Apache Attack Helicopter is referenced by several different participants-itself a synthesis and reflection of U.S. military force and the appropriation of Indigenous language by colonizers.

Antisemitism and Jewish conspiracy

The connection between antisemitism and enduring white nationalism in the data set must be identified and understood through historical context. Antisemitism was first termed in the 1870s to describe new patterns of Jewish subjugation across Europe after Jews gained citizenship and individual rights (Robinson 2000, 472). Antisemitism is a "cyclical" oppression that positions Jews as secretly capable and powerful, and conversely, a lesser-than corrupting force in society (Jews for Racial and Economic Justice 2017, 15). Hostility to Jewish people is the "lynchpin" of white supremacist organizing and alt-right conspiracy theories because "within this ideological matrix, Jews-despite and indeed because they often read as white-are a different, unassimilable, enemy race that must be exposed, defeated, and ultimately eliminated" (Ward 2017, 10).

What are your strengths and skills in engineering and computer science classrooms or projects?
Recognizing Jewish Marxist conditioning. -#24
What are your most important sources of support & community in your engineering or computer science program?
Hitlers 3rd Reich -#25
What is your favorite part of engineering & computer science programs & student culture?
The fact that Jews aren't in it. -#37

Getting to fuck my classmates without their consent. If they report me, I'll just report them to the Jewish elites and the Clinton foundation and we'll kill their parents. -#28

My favorite part is how I can get all the students and faculty to deep throat my pozzed tranny cock and rim my yummy boy hole in public for everyone else to see just by threatening to report them to my jew enablers at the ADL so they can dox them and defame them as nazis for the egregious hate crime of not wanting to sexually satisfy me in public. -#43

One of our researchers, who is Jewish, had their last name referenced directly:

Are there any comments that you would like to share with the research team?
I felt like the team wasn't diverse enough and included too many cis-white males. I did not appreciate the lack of trigger warning. Haverkamp reminded me of mein kampf which triggered my alter-jewish identity. -#2

Online hate subculture references

The growth of hate movements online carries specific vernacular and in-group "jokes." Respondent #6 filled every comment field with the same phrase: "They can call me MA'AM'' followed by 70 exclamation points. This is a direct reference to a popular video shared online by anti-trans activists with millions of views. The viral video shows a trans woman yelling at a GameStop employee after being misgendered, and the woman in the video is frequently cited as emblematic of trans activists. Respondents frequently referenced "triggered/trigger warnings." The website Tumblr was referenced as an important place for several malicious responders. The site once known as a safer space for LGBTQI+ people has more recently been noted as a hot spot for white supremacist and anti-trans targeting (Nagle 2017). Members of the white nationalist associated community of 4chan perform organized "raids" of Tumblr, flooding the social media site with offensive and antisemitic imagery. References to online jokes, humor, memes, or hateful jokes permeated the data.

Identifying one's gender as an (Apache) Attack Helicopter is also a hallmark of anti-trans discourse online, whether overt or in passing, and helicopters and aircraft were mentioned 12 times in the data. This meme can be understood through the belief that gender is genital-based at birth and any deviation is undeniably outrageous-and this anti-trans joke argues that trans-ness is inherently made up or artificial. Students in the virtual TGNC engineering community described the meme as a more socially acceptable way to mock trans people compared to overt slurs. The various identities targeted through stereotyping, slurs, and offhand statements blur together to form a web of oppression, leaving masculinity, whiteness, and Christianity untouched.

Discussion

The backlash to our research project reflects characteristics of contemporary far-right or fascist political movements in the U.S., such as the synthesis of antisemitism with anti-Black and anti-feminist rhetoric (Ward 2017). Harassment against engineering education researchers conducting social justice research are expressions of power intended to silence our efforts toward equity, and we should organize against these efforts (Pawley et al. 2019). It is our hope that this paper and our discussion will assist researchers in making sense of malicious responses they receive by shedding light on this often undiscussed, yet serious, phenomenon. We further hope that readers can leave this paper with a clear sense of application of this work to their own research, education, and organizing.

There are three primary themes in our discussion: (1) the potential for malicious responder research to shed light on and undermine hate speech; (2) an ideological exploration into the malicious responses as reflective of fascist ideologies and movements, and (3) potential responses in higher education.

Research as counterspeech

This paper was written precisely because we had not seen a paper written by researchers analyzing the hateful comments they received. Our peers in the field have been targeted and have written about it-but a content analysis or deeper details were not released (Pawley et al. 2019). Research demonstrates that online harassment and discrimination towards scholars lead to mental health issues and silencing, with scholars of marginalized identities more vulnerable to these effects, but this describes the impact of the targeting-not the content itself (Gosse et al. 2021). Analysis of harassment towards academics by Doerfler and colleagues (2021) proposes a taxonomy of harassment that objects to work on race, gender, and marginalization; details how harassers can form networks to enact the abuse; and argues that institutions are presently unable to support the mental and spiritual wellbeing of researchers experiencing targeting. Within the paper, Doerfler et al. posit three primary motivations for online harassment: "1) self-preservation, in that the research poses a real or perceived threat to the harasser 2) ideology, when the research is offensive to the harasser or challenges their ideology; and 3) performative harassment for personal or social gratification" (p. 5-6). Targeting of our work by malicious responders is likely ideological in nature. Many questions we had about academic research communities and our capacity to enact collective care and institutional ethics of safety/visibility have been reflected on by others as well, namely Massanari and her work on the "Alt-Right" online gaze upon researchers (2018).

Despite this, we still return to the question of the data itself-is it to be deleted, unspoken, stored on a hard drive, or analyzed? We clearly argue that more analysis work should be done on the words and ideologies written by the commenters-particularly work that takes their words, repurposes them into critique, and pushes back.

Counterspeech-done safely and with intention-can be empowering, reclaim control and narratives of our lives, and work towards a productive end-goal. The Online Harassment Field Manual's section entitled "Fight Back Write Back*"* offers examples of counterspeech such as "the reclamation of hashtags" and "enlisting an online community to redirect the conversation in a comments section" (PEN America 2022). Similar work in academia can be done to safely and intentionally repurpose, confront, and make assertive statements against the ideologies expressed in malicious comment data. For the researcher on our team who experienced the brunt of the hate speech, she felt most fully able to complete her dissertation work when the idea to analyze and publish the malicious comments was further refined. Recommendations in prior work center on institutional response and research ethics-we hope that this paper and our discussion demonstrate usefulness to dissecting the ideology, assessing why a particular study was targeted, and confronting the hate in the research process itself. Further work may be able to assess the size, scale, and severity of these subcultures in STEM student bodies, for example, or better understand the cultural proximities at play. Safety from additional danger and intention in the analysis, as suggested by PEN America in the Online Harassment Field Manual's section "Guidelines for Safely Practicing Counterspeech," should be key for researchers building on this work.

Ideological motivations

Harassment and targeting of academics and their research can come from those with ideological motivations. Theories of fascism provide a framework to interpret the ways that dominant, oppressive, or reactionary ideologies regarding race, personhood, and gender become entrenched in community base building, exercises of power, and the State (Toscano 2021). Exercises of power by fascist movements can be electoral or legislative victories, violence, media entrenchment, and discursive shifts (Paxton 1998; Ross 2016). In our data, we saw individuals exercising discursive power in their language to target researchers and tamper with data. Importantly, the themes and repetitions serve to mark shared references and signify an existing community with a shared political agenda and racist, trans-antagonistic, and online political meme commentary.

Fascism is not a coherent singular ideology or a resolved historical problem. It is a process, not only an outcome, consisting of multiple simultaneous reactionary movements which advocate extremist "ideas about race, religion, economics, social welfare and morality" (Davies and Lynch 2002, 13). Anti-fascism is a framework that we can use to connect contemporary fascist movements to the foundation of the U.S. as a racial project and ongoing legacies into the present era, which have bolstered colonialism, eugenics, slavery, and the prison industrial complex (Mullen and Vials 2020, 6-8). The U.S., while purporting to be founded on legal equality and democratic rights, was predicated on the 17^th^ century invention of "the white race" alongside slave codes and settler colonial militarism-defining people of color as subordinate racial castes who were ultimately dispensable when it favored the white land-owning class (Mullen and Vials 2020**)**. Further, white eugenicist and fascist movements in Europe played a key role in the transition of gender/sexual differences into "notions of sickness and deviancy within criminal law" to be constructed, categorized, regulated, or eradicated, which continues to shape material conditions for contemporary trans and queer communities of color (Mullen and Vials 2020, 316). The fact that just three respondents identified as white in the demographics, with most responses noting a form of disability and non-normative gender, points to a critical ideological subtext: the fascist extremist's obsession with conflating and eradicating TGNC/LGBTQI+ people, Black people, Indigenous people, Jews, Muslims, "race-mixing" and multiracial people, and people with disabilities.

Various parts of the fascism-as-process, five-stage model can be interpreted as present within the data. The geographically widespread institutional email addresses recorded from malicious responders and their connections to online hate-movement building relate to the movement-building defined in stage 1, and the ability to target researchers and research projects is a minor exercise of power (stage 4). The backlash to our research project is just one small component of broader fascist base building in the United States which frequently targets trans individuals and student activists (Hayden, 2020).

Higher education responses

The targeting of social justice research and marginalized academics fits into theories of fascism as a pathway the right-wing can use to exert power, one act within a larger effort. With this in mind, we can explore ways to not only protect each other and perform our work, but also stifle their broader social-political goals. Alexander Reid Ross (2016) concludes Against the Fascist Creep by stating that education is a key tool for dismantling fascist political movements:

It is fascism and the radical right's distortion of truth that poses the greatest threat to the world-not immigration or "Islamization." Combatting fascism requires the bravery and courage of fact. Knowledge pierces prejudice. Education around politics, immigration, Islam, and Judaism-to name only a few hot points-remains crucial. (p. 330).

Extremist political ideologies and conspiracy theories are increasingly easy to access online. If counter-education does not occur or is not widely accessible, then white supremacists and nationalists will have a larger share of political education through social media and other media platforms (Snyder 2021).

The university at its most ideal can be envisioned as "a central site for revolutionary struggle, a site where we can work to educate for critical consciousness" using "a pedagogy of liberation" (hooks 1989, 31). Towards this liberation, teaching theories of power regarding racism, antisemitism, cissexism, and fascist political movements should avoid "individual bad actor" frameworks which have been common in STEM (Riley et al. 2009). Frameworks that illustrate interdependent collective struggle, and demonstrate a politic of solidarity, should be centered instead. We share Cathy Cohen's assertion that "the process of movement building [should] be rooted not in our shared history or identity, but in our shared marginal relationship to dominant power which normalizes, legitimizes, and privileges" (Cohen 1997, 458). Identities such as transgender status in STEM teaching should similarly not be taught as "single issues" but be conceptualized as one component of our multifaceted experiences with power and oppression-and that categories such as race, gender, and sexuality have roots in European colonial logics shared by fascist movements (Haverkamp et al. 2021). The content of social justice education in STEM must also challenge STEM's role in these oppressions. Engineering graduates in the U.S. frequently work in fields such as fossil fuels, defense, construction, and technology upon graduation, and could be taught about these field's relationships with national and global racial capitalism and ongoing apartheid in Palestine, as an example (Davis 2016, 79-83). While outside the scope of this research, though perhaps relevant to other researchers, a quick internet search of a phrase such as "January 6 engineer" will quickly reveal a number of engineers involved with the Capitol Riots. These engineers were educated in our classrooms. Engineering educators have a responsibility to teach critical thinking around political issues.

Conclusion

Our researcher serving as the primary contact for the outreach questionnaire received a winding 500-word email, with its end stating:

I am only writing this email to make it more obviously aware to you that your "transgender and non-conforming gender" studies are only encouraging this new unfortunate and immature movement that is happening across the United States at this time. I am appalled that you think it is okay to waste money and precious time on something so irrelevant in the field of engineering... please dispose of this study and focus on something better. Do it for humanity. The decisions we make now will effect (sic) the outcome of history forever. Don't make the wrong decisions.

We disagree with this email's assertions. This analysis and the TGNC student resiliency study they are referencing are for the sake of humanity. The email asserts that our research is part of a movement that will affect the "outcome of history forever." We hope that this paper is part of a movement that will dismantle hate, bigotry, and oppression. Using social justice and anti-racist frameworks to dissect malicious data recorded in engineering education research is necessary in order to conduct responsible and rigorous scholarship.

This analysis is a rebuke of conspiracy theories and misinformation which not only barraged our research but also underpinned the fascist storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021. We should find common ties between social events such as the cyber threats issued against engineering educators, anti-trans rhetoric online from celebrities and major media, antisemitic conspiracies gaining a foothold in mainstream political discourse, and the shooting of Black Lives Matter protestors by a member of the right-wing militia movement. These events all share a common tie of growing extremist racial and gender rhetoric and violence. This paper answers calls made by engineering educators to embrace academic freedom and engage in political discourse (Morgan et al. 2020; Riley et al. 2020). We echo scholarship explicitly naming antiracist engineering education approaches as critical in combating white supremacy (Cross 2020). Our field must develop a robust analysis of how racist and fascist discourses are inseparable from transphobic discourses and approach malicious responses to research that focuses on marginalized people in engineering as central evidence in this research. Addressing these sentiments and their cultural contexts are not only critical for understanding resistance to social justice research, but it is imperative for our colleagues' safety and the transformation of our field.

References

Anti-Defamation League. 2020. Free to Play? Hate, Harassment and Positive Social Experiences in Online Games 2020. New York: Anti-Defamation League. https://www.adl.org/resources/report/free-play-hate-harassment-and-positive-social-experience-online-games-2020.

Best, Joel. 2018. "Constructionist Studies of Social Problems: How We Got Here, and Where We Ought to Go." Società Mutamento Politica 9 (18): 53-67.

Blee, Kathleen M. 1996. "Becoming a Racist: Women in Contemporary Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazi Groups." Gender and Society 10 (6): 680-702.

Boudreau, Kristin, Leo Ryan Bunyea, David DiBiasio, Rozwell Johnson, and Zoe Reidinger. 2019. "Integrating Inclusive Pedagogy and Experiential Learning to Support Student Empowerment, Activism, and Institutional Change: A Case Study with Transgender STEM Students." Paper presented at CoNECD: The Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity, Crystal City, Virginia, April 14, 2019. https://peer.asee.org/31772.

Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2021. "Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey Search Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey." U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.  https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm.

Braun, Virginia, and Victoria Clarke. 2006. "Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology." Qualitative Research in Psychology 3 (2): 77-101.

Browne, Kath, and Catherine J. Nash, eds. 2010. Queer Methods and Methodologies: Intersecting Queer Theories and Social Science Research. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.

Cavalcante, Andre. 2016. "I Did It All Online: Transgender Identity and the Management of Everyday Life." Critical Studies in Media Communication 33 (1): 109-122.

Cech, Erin A. 2013. "The (Mis)Framing of Social Justice: Why Ideologies of Depoliticization and Meritocracy Hinder Engineers' Ability to Think About Social Injustices." In Engineering Education for Social Justice, edited by Juan Lucena, 67-84. New York: Springer.

Cech, Erin A, and Tom J. Waidzunas. 2011. "Navigating the Heteronormativity of Engineering: The Experiences of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Students." Engineering Studies 3 (1): 1-24.

Cimpian, Joseph R., Jennifer D. Timmer, Michelle A. Birkett, Rachel L. Marro, Blair C. Turner, and Gregory L. Phillips. 2018. "Bias From Potentially Mischievous Responders on Large-Scale Estimates of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, or Questioning (LGBQ)-Heterosexual Youth Health Disparities." American Journal of Public Health 108: 258-65.

Cohen, Cathy J. 2020. "Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens." In Feminist Theory Reader, edited by Carole McCann, Seung-kyung Kim, and Emek Ergun, 311-23. New York: Routledge.

Condis, Megan. 2018. Gaming Masculinity: Trolls, Fake Geeks, and the Gendered Battle for Online Culture. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.

Crawley, S. L., MC Whitlock, and Jennifer Earles. 2021. "Smithing Queer Empiricism: Engaging Ethnomethodology for a Queer Social Science." Sociological Theory 39 (3): 127-52.

Cross, Kelly J. 2020. "Racism is the Manifestation of White Supremacy and Antiracism is the Answer." Journal of Engineering Education 109 (4): 625-28.

Davies, Peter, and Derek Lynch. 2002.  The Routledge Companion to Fascism and the Far Right. New York: Routledge.

Davis, Angela Y. 2016. Freedom is a Constant Struggle. Chicago: Haymarket Books.

Dewey, Caitlin 2014. "Inside the Manosphere That Inspired Santa Barbara Shooter Elliot Rodger." The Washington Post, May 27, 2014. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/05/27/inside-the-manosphere-that-inspired-santa-barbara-shooter-elliot-rodger/.

Doerfler, Periwinkle, Andrea Forte, Emiliano De Cristofaro, Gianluca Stringhini, Jeremy Blackburn, and Damon McCoy. 2021. "i'm a Professor, which isn't usually a dangerous job": Internet-facilitated Harassment and Its Impact on Researchers." Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 5: 341.

Driskill, Quo-Li, Chris Finley, Brian Joseph Gilley, and Scott Lauria Morgensen. 2011. "The Revolution is for Everyone: Imagining an Emancipatory Future Through Queer Indigenous Critical Theories." In Queer Indigenous Studies, edited by Quo-Li Driskill, Chris Finley, Brian Joseph Gilley, and Scott Lauria Morgensen, 211-21. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne. 2003. "The Grid of History: Cowboys and Indians." Monthly Review 55 (3). https://monthlyreview.org/2003/07/01/the-grid-of-history-cowboys-and-indians/.

Easpaig, Bróna Nic Giolla. 2018. "An Exploratory Study of Sexism in Online Gaming Communities: Mapping Contested Digital Terrain." Community Psychology in Global Perspective 4 (2): 119-35.

Finley, Chris. 2011. "Decolonizing the Queer Native Body." In Queer Indigenous Studies, edited by Quo-Li Driskill, Chris Finley, Brian Joseph Gilley, and Scott Lauria Morgensen, 31-42. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

Flanagan, N Nora, Jessica Acee, and Lindsay Schubiner. 2019. Confronting White Nationalism in Schools: A Toolkit. Portland, OR: Western States Center. https://www.pps.net/cms/lib/OR01913224/Centricity/Domain/4/ConfrontingWhiteNationalisminSchoolsToolkit.pdf.

Flores, Andrew R., Jody L. Herman, Gary J. Gates, and Taylor N. T. Brown. 2016. How Many Adults Identify as Transgender in The United States? Los Angeles: Williams Institute. https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/Trans-Adults-US-Aug-2016.pdf.

Fouad, Nadya, Wen-Hsin Chang, Min Wan, and Romila Singh. 2017. "Women's Reasons for Leaving the Engineering Field." Frontiers in Psychology 8:875.

Foucault, Michel. 1978. The History of Sexuality. New York: Pantheon Books.

Friedlander, Henry. 1995. Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Gosse, Chandell, George Veletsianos, Jaigris Hodson, Shandell Houlden, Tonia A. Dousay, Patrick R. Lowenthal, and Nathan Hall. 2021. "The Hidden Costs of Connectivity: Nature and Effects of Scholars' Online Harassment." Learning, Media and Technology 46 (3): 264-80.

Gossett, Che. 2017. "Blackness and the Trouble of Trans Visibility." In Trap Door, edited by Reina Gossett, Eric A. Stanley, and Johanna Burton, 183-90. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Gregory, Stacie LeSure. 2015. "African American Female Engineering Students' Persistence in Stereotype Threatening Environments: A Critical Race Theory Perspective." PhD diss., Utah State University. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd/4260.

Gwyther, Gabrielle, and Alphia Possamai‐Inesedy. 2009. "Methodologies à la Carte: an Examination of Emerging Qualitative Methodologies in Social Research." International Journal of Social Research Methodology 12 (2): 99-115.

Harwell, Drew. 2019. "Three Mass Shootings This Year Began with a Hateful Screed on 8chan. Its Founder Calls It a Terrorist Refuge in Plain Sight." The Washington Post, August 4, 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/08/04/three-mass-shootings-this-year-began-with-hateful-screed-chan-its-founder-calls-it-terrorist-refuge-plain-sight/.

Haverkamp, Andrea, Michelle Bothwell, Devlin Montfort, and Qwo-Li Driskill. 2021. "Calling for a Paradigm Shift in the Study of Gender in Engineering Education." Studies in Engineering Education 1 (2): 55-70.

Hayden, Michael Edison. 2020. The Fascist Underpinnings of Pro-Trump Media: An Interview With Author Jason Stanley. Montgomery, AL: Southern Poverty Law Center.

Haynes, Suyin. 2019. "A Study Analyzed 10 Million Online Posts Over 3.5 Years. It Found a Torrent of Transphobic Abuse." TIME, October 25, 2019. https://time.com/5710466/transphobic-abuse-online-study/.

Hill-Collins, Patricia. 1990. "Black Feminist Thought in the Matrix of Domination." In Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, edited by Patricia Hill-Collins, 221-38. Boston: Unwin Hyman.

hooks, bell. 1988 Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black. Boston: South End Press.

Hughto, Jaclyn M. W., David Pletta, Lily Gordon, Sean Cahill, Matthew J. Mimiaga, Sari L. Reisner. 2021. "Negative Transgender-Related Media Messages Are Associated with Adverse Mental Health Outcomes in a Multistate Study of Transgender Adults." LGBT Health 8 (1): 32-41.

January, Brianna. 2020. "The Right is Dominating Facebook Engagement on Content about Trans Issues." Media Matters, July 7, 2020. https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/right-dominating-facebook-engagement-content-about-trans-issues.

Jews for Racial and Economic Justice. 2017. "Understanding Antisemitism: An Offering to our Movement." https://jfrej-web-assets.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/JFREJ-Understanding-Antisemitism-November-2017-v1-3-2.pdf.

Joel, Daphna. (2011). "Male or Female? Brains are Intersex." Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience 5: 57.

Kline, Stephen, Nick Dyer-Witheford, and Greig De Peuter. 2003. Digital Play: The Interaction of Technology, Culture, and Marketing. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.

Leonardo, Zeus. 2004. "The Color of Supremacy: Beyond the Discourse of 'White Privilege.'" Educational Philosophy and Theory 36 (2): 137-52.

Linley, Jodi L., Kristen A. Renn, and Michael R. Woodford. 2018. "Examining the Ecological Systems of LGBTQ STEM Majors." Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering 24 (1): 1-16.

Logel, Christine, Gregory M. Walton, Steven J. Spencer, Emma C. Iserman, William von Hippel, and Amy E. Bell. 2009. "Interacting with Sexist Men Triggers Social Identity Threat Among Female Engineers." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 96 (6): 1089-103.

Massanari, Adrienne L. 2018. "Rethinking Research Ethics, Power, and the Risk of Visibility in the Era of the 'Alt-Right' Gaze." Social Media+ Society 4 (2). https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305118768302.

Matamoros-Fernández, Ariadna. 2020. "'El Negro de WhatsApp' Meme, Digital Blackface, and Racism on Social Media." First Monday 25 (1). https://journals.uic.edu/ojs/index.php/fm/article/download/10420/8325.

McLean, Lavinia, and Mark D. Griffiths. 2019. "Female Gamers' Experience of Online Harassment and Social Support in Online Gaming: A Qualitative Study." International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction 17 (4): 970-94.

Miller-Idriss, Cynthia. 2020. Hate in the Homeland: The New Global Far Right. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Morgan, Demetri, Kendrick B. Davis, and Norma López. 2020. "Engineering Political Fluency: Identifying Tensions in the Political Identity Development of Engineering Majors." Journal of Engineering Education 109 (1): 107-24.

Mullen, Bill V., and Christopher Vials. 2020. The U.S. Antifascism Reader. Brooklyn: Verso Books.

Nagle, Angela. 2017. Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars From 4Chan and Tumblr to Trump and the Alt-Right. Washington: Zero Books.

Nicolazzo, Z. 2017. Trans* in College: Transgender Students' Strategies for Navigating Campus Life and the Institutional Politics of Inclusion. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.

Pawley, Alice L., Erin A. Cech, Stephanie Farrell, and Donna M. Riley. 2019. "Targeted Harassment of Engineering Educators: How to Connect with Community and Support Your Colleagues Under Attack." Paper presented at CoNECD: The Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity, Crystal City, VA, April 14, 2019. https://peer.asee.org/31796.

Paxton, Robert O. 1998. "The Five Stages of Fascism." The Journal of Modern History 1: 1-23.

Paz, María Antonia, Julio Montero-Díaz, and Alicia Moreno-Delgado. 2020. "Hate Speech: a Systematized Review." SAGE Open 10 (4). https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244020973022.

Pearce, Ruth, Sonja Erikainen, and Ben. Vincent. 2020. "TERF Wars: An Introduction.  The Sociological Review 68 (4): 677-98.

PEN America. 2022. Online Harassment Field Manual. https://onlineharassmentfieldmanual.pen.org/.

Pryse, Marjorie. 2000. "Trans/Feminist Methodology: Bridges to Interdisciplinary Thinking." NWSA Journal 12 (2): 105-18.

Quinlan, Casey. 2019. "It's No Coincidence the Synagogue Shooter Posted About the 'Red Pill Movement'." ThinkProgress, April 30, 2019. https://archive.thinkprogress.org/no-coincidence-california-synagogue-shooter-john-earnest-posted-about-the-red-pill-movement-aa46b31c01ad/.

Riley, Donna, Ellen K. Foster, and Jennifer Karlin. 2020. "Show Up and Disrupt." Journal of Engineering Education 109 (1): 7-10.

Riley, Donna, Alice L. Pawley, Jessica Tucker and George D. Catalano. 2009. "Feminisms in Engineering Education: Transformative Possibilities." NWSA Journal 21 (2): 21-40.

Robinson, George. 2000. Essential Judaism: A Complete Guide to Beliefs, Customs and Rituals. New York: Pocket Books.

Robinson-Cimpian, Joseph P. 2014. "Inaccurate Estimation of Disparities Due to Mischievous Responders: Several Suggestions to Assess Conclusions." Educational Researcher 43 (4): 171-85.

Ross, Alexander Reid. 2016. Against the Fascist Creep. Chico, CA: AK Press.

Saldaña, Johnny, and Matt Omasta. 2017. Qualitative Research: Analyzing Life. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Shaw, Adrienne. 2014. Gaming at the Edge: Sexuality and Gender at the Margins of Gamer Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Snorton, C. Riley. 2017. Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Snyder, Timothy. 2021. "The American Abyss." The New York Times Magazine, January 9, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/magazine/trump-coup.html.

Starr, Christine R. 2018. "'I'm Not a Science Nerd!': STEM Stereotypes, Identity, and Motivation Among Undergraduate Women." Psychology of Women Quarterly 42 (4): 489-503.

Stewart, Terrah J. 2016. "To Whom It Should Concern: An Open letter on the N-Word and Academic Publishing." Medium, July 16, 2021. https://terahjay.medium.com/to-whom-it-should-concern-an-open-letter-on-the-n-word-and-academic-publishing-edcd0c699578.

Stolzenberg, Ellen Bara, and Bryce Hughes. 2017. "The Experiences of Incoming Transgender College Students: New Data on Gender Identity." Liberal Education 103 (2): 38-43.

Stryker, Susan. 2014. "Trans Studies: Queer Studies Evil Twin." GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 10 (2): 212-15.

Stryker, Susan, Paisley Currah, and Lisa Moore. 2008. "Introduction: Trans-, Trans, or Transgender?" Women's Studies Quarterly 36 (3/4): 11-22.

TaeHyuk Keum, Brian, and Maynard Hearns. 2021. "Online Gaming and Racism: Impact on Psychological Distress Among Black, Asian, and Latinx Emerging Adults." Games and Culture 17 (3): https://doi.org/10.1177/15554120211039082.

Thomas, David R. 2006. "A General Inductive Approach for Analyzing Qualitative Evaluation Data." American Journal of Evaluation 27 (2): 237-46.

Toscano, Alberto. 2021. "Incipient Fascism: Black Radical Perspectives." CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 23 (1): 6.

Ward, Eric K. 2017. Skin in the Game: How Antisemitism Animates White Nationalism. Somerville, MA: Political Research Associates.

Weisman, Jonathan. 2018. (((Semitism))): Being Jewish in America in the Age of Trump. New York: St. Martin's Press.

Wells, Georgia, and Ian Lovett. 2019. "'So What's His Kill Count?': The Toxic Online World Where Mass Shooters Thrive." The Wall Street Journal, September 4, 2019. https://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-the-toxic-online-world-where-mass-shooters-thrive-11567608631.

Zitz, Claudia, Jan Burns, and Erasmo Tacconelli. 2014. "Trans Men and Friendships: A Foucauldian Discourse Analysis." Feminism & Psychology 24 (2): 216-37.

Acknowledgements

Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon, is located within the traditional homelands of the Mary's River or Ampinefu Band of Kalapuya. Following the Willamette Valley Treaty of 1855, Kalapuya people were forcibly removed to reservations in Western Oregon. Today, living descendants of these people are a part of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde Community of Oregon ( grandronde.org) and the Confederated Tribes of the Siletz Indians ( ctsi.nsn.us).

We are grateful for funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) under grant EEC-1764103. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
[map[affiliation:map[bio:holds a PhD in Environmental Engineering with a minor in Queer Studies from Oregon State University. She is an academic labor organizer and adjunct professor in the University of San Diego Master of Science in Engineering, Sustainability and Health degree program.
 department: isni:0000 0001 0448 5736 organization:University of San Diego ror:03jbbze48] email: given_name:Andrea name:Andrea Haverkamp orcid:<nil> surname:Haverkamp] map[affiliation:map[bio:is a PhD student in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies minoring in Ethnic Studies at Oregon State University. His research is primarily concerned with critical trans legal studies, queer studies, and critical race theory.
 department: isni:0000 0001 2112 1969 organization:Oregon State University ror:00ysfqy60] email: given_name:Finn name:Finn Johnson orcid:<nil> surname:Johnson] map[affiliation:map[bio:is a Professor in Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering at Oregon State University. Her teaching and research interests include ethics, social justice and engineering, and institutional transformation.
 department: isni:0000 0001 2112 1969 organization:Oregon State University ror:00ysfqy60] email:bothwell@oregonstate.edu given_name:Michelle K. name:Michelle K. Bothwell orcid:<nil> surname:Bothwell] map[affiliation:map[bio:is an Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Queer Studies at Oregon State University. Their scholarship focuses on Indigenous Two-Spirit critiques and cultural rhetorics.
 department: isni:0000 0001 2112 1969 organization:Oregon State University ror:00ysfqy60] email: given_name:Qwo-Li name:Qwo-Li Driskill orcid:<nil> surname:Driskill] map[affiliation:map[bio:is an Associate Professor in Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering at Oregon State University. His research focuses on conceptual change, epistemology and community in engineering.
 department: isni:0000 0001 2112 1969 organization:Oregon State University ror:00ysfqy60] email: given_name:Devlin name:Devlin Montfort orcid:<nil> surname:Montfort]]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Attack Helicopters and White Supremacy: Interpreting Malicious Responses to an Online Questionnaire about Transgender Undergraduate Engineering and Computer Science Student Experiences

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Online research that solicits participation from marginalized communities or is conducted by scholars of marginalized identities may be targeted by individuals who intend to tamper with the study outcomes and/or harass the researchers.

# data[].attributes.headline
Think Tank Attendee List and Affiliations

# data[].attributes.subject
Think Tank Attendee List and Affiliations

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Final_2023 LED-BIO Meeting--Participants - Final List All Think Tank POST

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

# data[].attributes.wish_content.attachment_props.text
LED Bio kick off Day 01 of our Town Hall series and Think Tank 2023 at @MBLScience. We are addressing Challenge 1: Lack of data to track society's demographic composition. 
#ledbio #inclusioninstem #scidiversitty

# data[].attributes.wish_content.attachment_props.original_text
LED Bio kick off Day 01 of our Town Hall series and Think Tank 2023 at @MBLScience. We are addressing Challenge 1: Lack of data to track society's demographic composition. 
#ledbio #inclusioninstem #scidiversitty https://t.co/uY0WjMF3Go

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.embed_code
LED Bio kick off Day 01 of our Town Hall series and Think Tank 2023 at @MBLScience. We are addressing Challenge 1: Lack of data to track society's demographic composition. #ledbio #inclusioninstem #scidiversitty pic.twitter.com/uY0WjMF3Go
— A.K. Siam (@AK47Siam) October 4, 2023

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props_source.data.text
LED Bio kick off Day 01 of our Town Hall series and Think Tank 2023 at @MBLScience. We are addressing Challenge 1: Lack of data to track society's demographic composition. 
#ledbio #inclusioninstem #scidiversitty https://t.co/uY0WjMF3Go

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
LED Bio kick off Day 01 of our Town Hall series and Think Tank 2023 at @MBLScience. We are addressing Challenge 1: Lack of data to track society's demographic composition. 
#ledbio #inclusioninstem #scidiversitty https://t.co/uY0WjMF3Go

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
LED Bio kick off Day 01 of our Town Hall series and Think Tank 2023 at @MBLScience. We are addressing Challenge 1: Lack of data to track society's demographic composition. 
#ledbio #inclusioninstem #scidiversitty

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
LED Bio kick off Day 01 of our Town Hall series and Think Tank 2023 at Marine Biological Laboratory. We are addressing Challenge 1: Lack of data to track society's demographic composition. Join us as we embark on a mission to bridge the data gap and create more informed scientific societies. For joining or more information, shoot an email at sakib.hussen@goucher.edu or DM Sakib Hussen.#ledbio #inclusioninstem #scidiversity

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Abdul K. Siam on LinkedIn: #ledbio #inclusioninstem #scidiversity

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
LED Bio kick off Day 01 of our Town Hall series and Think Tank 2023 at Marine Biological Laboratory. We are addressing Challenge 1: Lack of data to track...

# data[].attributes.body
Dr. Marcos E. García-Ojeda is a Teaching Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Merced. He is the Past President of SABER, the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research. At UC Merced, he served as Associate Dean for Equity, Diversity and Inclusive Excellence and currently chairs the senate committee in Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Sakib Hussen on LinkedIn: #ledbio #scidiversity #inclusioninstem

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
LED-BIO Town Hall & Think Tank 2023 at the Marine Biological Laboratory: Professional societies' leaders are engaged in groundbreaking discussions on...

# data[].attributes.body
Dr. Miriam Segura is a biology professor and the Harry B. Forester Eminent Scholars Chair in Biological Sciences at the University of North Georgia (UNG). Her research interests focus on methods that promote critical thinking in undergraduates, specifically the analysis of primary scientific literature in the classroom. Dr. Segura’s teaching was recognized in 2016 through UNG’s most prestigious honor, the Distinguished Teaching Award, and in 2017 through the University System of Georgia Regents’ Teaching Excellence Award (Felton Jenkins, Jr. Hall of Fame Faculty Award). She is President-Elect for the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER), and she has served as an editor for the Journal for Microbiology and Biology Education (JMBE) and the STEM Education section of Frontiers Journals.

# data[].attributes.wish_content.attachment_props.text
Day 1 BIO-LED Think Tank at Woods Hole. Topic: Lack of data collection to track scientific society demographic composition. What do you all think are likely barriers and potential solutions?

# data[].attributes.wish_content.attachment_props.original_text
Day 1 BIO-LED Think Tank at Woods Hole. Topic: Lack of data collection to track scientific society demographic composition. What do you all think are likely barriers and potential solutions?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.embed_code
Day 1 BIO-LED Think Tank at Woods Hole. Topic: Lack of data collection to track scientific society demographic composition. What do you all think are likely barriers and potential solutions?
— SABER (@SABERcommunity) October 4, 2023

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props_source.data.text
Day 1 BIO-LED Think Tank at Woods Hole. Topic: Lack of data collection to track scientific society demographic composition. What do you all think are likely barriers and potential solutions?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
Day 1 BIO-LED Think Tank at Woods Hole. Topic: Lack of data collection to track scientific society demographic composition. What do you all think are likely barriers and potential solutions?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
Day 1 BIO-LED Think Tank at Woods Hole. Topic: Lack of data collection to track scientific society demographic composition. What do you all think are likely barriers and potential solutions?

# data[].attributes.headline
Welcome to our first Town Hall from the MBL!

# data[].attributes.subject
Welcome to our first Town Hall from the MBL!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
Boats and boating--Equipment and supplies

# data[].attributes.body
Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85026509197?pwd=Wi9sczJqTzkxVlNZWFhERmRVcE9hUT09

Meeting ID: 850 2650 9197

Passcode: 100323

# data[].attributes.body
Saundra Johnson Austin is the Founder and President & CEO of Charis (pronounced Kare'us) Consulting Group LLC. The organization specializes in building intellectual and human capacity for education and community transformation. She has 25 years of experience in corporate America, secondary and postsecondary education, community and workforce development and non-profit organizations.

As a champion for the education of underrepresented minorities in engineering and the sciences, Saundra has published and presented papers at national conferences, Fortune 500 companies, as well as government agencies throughout the country. Also, in her quest to transform the educational and leadership landscape, she serves on numerous boards, as well as memberships with various national, regional and local organizations.

Saundra is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame's Executive MBA program during which she was awarded the Selected Professions Fellowship by the American Association of University Women. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University, as well as a a life membership with the Penn State Alumni Association.

McKeesport, Pennsylvania is Saundra's hometown. She enjoys mentoring youth in the community and volunteering as a reading tutor. Rev. Clyde L. Austin, Jr. is her husband and she is a step-mom to their son, Joshua, and daughter, Charity.

# data[].attributes.headline
Frontiers research topic: (17 peer-reviewed articles) Professional and Scientific Societies Impacting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in STEMM

# data[].attributes.subject
Frontiers research topic: (17 peer-reviewed articles) Professional and Scientific Societies Impacting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in STEMM

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Professional and scientific societies are regarded as powerful agents of change in their disciplines. As such, these entities can have a strong impact in fostering inclusive scientific environments and training a diverse STEMM workforce that is innovative and well-positioned to respond to the challenges we face as a society. This Research Topic welcomes submissions that highlight the ways in which professional and scientific societies engage with their membership to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEMM. We encourage submissions from social science/education researchers as well as society volunteer/staff members engaged in this work.

This Research Topic aims to capture and highlight the different ways in which professional and scientific societies foster the diversification of the STEMM workforce. We invite submissions that showcase, describe, discuss and/or analyze interventions, strategies, and standard operating procedures used by these entities to increase diversity, equity, and inclusivity in their disciplinary fields and STEMM workforce. This Topic is a great opportunity for researchers to highlight the applicability of relevant work to professional and scientific society communities. Similarly, this Topic is a great opportunity for society volunteers/staff to discuss innovations and programs that have worked well in their scientific society communities.

We highly encourage article submissions that address or include: perspectives of STEMM workforce training in disciplinary societies and associated challenges, implementation of programs to diversify society membership, diversity program assessment, promising practices in program implementation and assessment.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Professional and Scientific Societies Impacting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in STEMM

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Professional and scientific societies are regarded as powerful agents of change in their disciplines. As such, these entities can have a strong impact in fostering inclusive scientific environments and training a diverse STEMM workforce that is innovative and well-positioned to respond to the challenges we face as a society.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
We invite you to join us for our Virtual Town Hall event! There will be a total of three Town Halls, to be held October 4-6, 2023. If you are interested in attending, please pre-register here: https://lnkd.in/enyADCzp Each Town Hall will address one of the challenges the LED-BIO project is aiming to tackle, namely: Lack of data to track scientific society membership demographic composition (October 4th; 10 AM -12:15 PM EST) Lack of integration of scientists in transitional career stages (October 5th; 10 AM -12:15 PM EST) Lack of diversity among highly visible thought leaders (October 6th; 10 AM -12:15 PM EST) If you are interested in attending, please pre-register here: https://lnkd.in/enyADCzp Each of these town halls will open with a short presentation to set the stage for the challenge that will be at the center of the discussion on that day. Following the presentation, Town Hall participants will participate in small group discussions that are cross-institutional, cross-sector, and multidisciplinary. Your insights will help us achieve convergence in perspectives on the opportunities to advance inclusivity in STEM disciplines through scientific societies. LED-BIO will use outcomes from these discussions to develop and publish action plans for scientific societies to address the three challenges identified. We will analyze these discussions to identify themes, and develop thought-leadership papers and community recommendations for scientific societies. We hope these materials will help societies tackle the three identified persistent challenges that can hamper their diversity and inclusion efforts. If you are interested in attending, please pre-register here: https://lnkd.in/enyADCzp

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Morning coffee & walk before starting the first full day of the ACCESS #ledbio think tank to support professional societies' augmentation of #scidiversity &...

# data[].attributes.wish_content.attachment_props.text
SABER Executive Committee members (Kelsey, Marcos, and Miriam) in Woods Hole, MA attending the BIO-LED Think Tank and Town Hall to help make scientific societies more inclusive!

# data[].attributes.wish_content.attachment_props.original_text
SABER Executive Committee members (Kelsey, Marcos, and Miriam) in Woods Hole, MA attending the BIO-LED Think Tank and Town Hall to help make scientific societies more inclusive! https://t.co/AMoShqmQit

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.embed_code
SABER Executive Committee members (Kelsey, Marcos, and Miriam) in Woods Hole, MA attending the BIO-LED Think Tank and Town Hall to help make scientific societies more inclusive! pic.twitter.com/AMoShqmQit
— SABER (@SABERcommunity) October 4, 2023

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props_source.data.text
SABER Executive Committee members (Kelsey, Marcos, and Miriam) in Woods Hole, MA attending the BIO-LED Think Tank and Town Hall to help make scientific societies more inclusive! https://t.co/AMoShqmQit

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
SABER Executive Committee members (Kelsey, Marcos, and Miriam) in Woods Hole, MA attending the BIO-LED Think Tank and Town Hall to help make scientific societies more inclusive! https://t.co/AMoShqmQit

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
SABER Executive Committee members (Kelsey, Marcos, and Miriam) in Woods Hole, MA attending the BIO-LED Think Tank and Town Hall to help make scientific societies more inclusive!

# data[].attributes.body
Veronica Segarra kicking off the LED-BIO meeting today.

# data[].attributes.headline
What Can Professional Scientific Societies Do to Improve Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: A Case Study of the American Elasmobranch Society

# data[].attributes.subject
What Can Professional Scientific Societies Do to Improve Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: A Case Study of the American Elasmobranch Society

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2022.842618

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

# data[].attributes.body
Karina H. Nakayama is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU). Dr. Nakayama's lab develops regenerative and immunomodulatory biomaterials to enhance engineered vasculature, muscle, and complex multi-tissue composites to develop therapies for ischemic cardiovascular diseases and traumatic musculoskeletal injuries. We approach these engineering challenges using biomaterial spatial patterning and immunomodulation combined with insights gained through computational biology and regenerative rehabilitation.

Prior to OHSU, Dr. Nakayama received her Ph.D in Biomedical Engineering from the University of California, Davis with her dissertation work aimed at developing regenerative therapies for congenital kidney diseases using decellularized kidney matrices and directed differentiation of stem cells towards renal lineages. She performed her postdoctoral work at Stanford University in the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery working towards enhancing angiogenesis in ischemic limbs and engineering atheroprotective vascular grafts and myocardial tissues through the manipulation of spatial and mechanical properties.

# data[].attributes.body
Dr. DaJoie Croslan is the Chief Operations and Diversity Officer at the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) responsible for the effective planning, direction, and operation of activities of major significance to the organization. She works closely with staff and stakeholder groups to identify and develop solutions to operational challenges, promote AIBS programs, cultivate relationships, and ensure that AIBS is working internally and externally to foster a more diverse and equitable organization and society. She serves as the co-chair of the AIBS IDEA² (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Acceptance and Accessibility) Committee and oversees all of AIBS’ IDEA² initiatives. Dr. Croslan received a Ph.D. in Biomedical Science with a concentration in Neuroscience from Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, GA, and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Georgetown University Medical Center’s Lombardi Cancer Institute.

# data[].attributes.body
Professor of Biology

Director, UNF Coastal and Marine Biology Flagship Program

University of North Florida

Dr. Gelsleichter joined the University of North Florida faculty as an Assistant Professor of Biology in August 2008, was promoted to Associate Professor in Fall 2014, and was promoted to Full Professor in 2022. He is also current Director of UNF’s Coastal and Marine Biology Flagship Program, one of the University’s most prestigious academic programs. He teaches introductory-level and advanced courses in topics such as General Biology, Endocrinology, Environmental Toxicology, and Shark Biology to UNF undergraduates and graduate students. Since his arrival in 2008, Jim has managed the UNF Shark Biology Program, a highly active and well-funded research program focusing on the biology and ecology of sharks and rays with special emphasis on shark populations in northeast Florida. The UNF Shark Biology Program has been monitoring the species composition and abundance of sharks off the northeast FL and southeast GA coast for the past 15 years, providing data critical for the management and conservation of these important marine animals. The program is also well known for its highly publicized work on the development and use of nonlethal approaches for studying reproduction in sharks and rays, including the endangered smalltooth sawfish, and its studies on the effects of environmental pollution on shark populations, including those impacted by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. Dr. Gelsleichter’s other career accomplishments include over 15 years of experience serving as Principal Investigator of NSF-funded, underrepresented minority-focused Research Experiences for Undergraduate Programs, and he was recently elected as President of the American Elasmobranch Society. Jim completed his doctorate at the College of William and Mary’s School of Marine Science, working on the Virginia Institute of Marine Science’s Shark Survey, the longest-running fishery-independent study of shark populations in the world. After receiving his degree, he was also employed as a shark biologist for 10 years at the Mote Marine Laboratory, an independent non-profit marine research institution well-known for its long history of conducting shark research.

# data[].attributes.headline
Share a social media post or picture with the rest of us! Add items to this Padlet column by clicking on the "+" sign and populating the stickie that pops up with what you want to share, a link to a post, a picture attachment, or your social media handle so that we can follow you!

# data[].attributes.subject
Share a social media post or picture with the rest of us! Add items to this Padlet column by clicking on the "+" sign and populating the stickie that pops up with what you want to share, a link to a post, a picture attachment, or your social media handle so that we can follow you!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
500 million+ members | Manage your professional identity. Build and engage with your professional network. Access knowledge, insights and opportunities.

# data[].attributes.body
Jasmin Graham is a shark scientist and environmental educator who specializes in elasmobranch (shark and ray) ecology and evolution. Her research interests include smalltooth sawfish movement ecology and hammerhead shark phylogeny. She serves on the Board of Directors as well as the Equity and Diversity Committee for the American Elasmobranch Society. Jasmin was named the 2021 WWF Conservation Leader. She has a passion for science education and making science more accessible to everyone. She is project coordinator for the MarSci-LACE project, which is focused on researching and promoting best practices to recruit, support and retain minority students in marine science. Jasmin is the President and CEO of Minorities in Shark Sciences (MISS), an organization dedicated to supporting women of color in shark sciences. She is excited to help open doors for more underrepresented minority students to join the exciting field of marine science.

Jasmin’s work encompasses the areas of science communication, social justice, outreach, education and conservation. She cares deeply about protecting endangered and vulnerable marine species, particularly elasmobranchs. She works in collaboration with Havenworth Coastal Conservation to study movements of elasmobranchs in Sarasota Bay. She has been featured on "Dive In with Sylvia Earle" and "StarTalk with Neil DeGrasse Tyson" as well as several other podcasts and webinar series. She was also an organizer for the 2020 “Black in Marine Science Week” and is a member of Black Women in Ecology, Evolution and Marine Science (BWEEMS).

Jasmin graduated from the College of Charleston in 2017 with a B.S. in Marine Biology and a B.A. in Spanish. She went on to receive her MSc. in Biological Science from Florida State University through the National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship Program.

# data[].attributes.body
James is Senior Editor of BioScience, the journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS), a nonprofit scientific society. He collaborates with BioScience's senior staff and the journal's publishing partner, Oxford University Press, to provide scientists, decision-makers, and the general public with peer-reviewed and authoritative overviews of current research in biology, accompanied by essays and discussions relevant to the field.

James also works with AIBS staff on a number of other programs aimed at scientific professional education and science communication, including hosting BioScience's podcast interview series, BioScience Talks.

# data[].attributes.body
Scott Glisson is CEO of the American Institute of Biological Sciences. The AIBS mission is to promote the use of science to inform decision-making and advance biology for the benefit of science and society. Our work at AIBS is focused on three strategic priorities that include: Publications and communications (Communication); Scientific Peer Advisory and Review Services(Assessment); and Community Programs (training). AIBS is committed to increasing inclusion, diversity, equity, and acceptance, and accessibility (IDEA2) in the biological sciences. AIBS is focusing on developing programs that center around our core activities of assessment, training, and communication.

# data[].attributes.headline
Want to share resources with the rest of us? Add items to this Padlet column by clicking on the "+" sign and populating the stickie that pops up with what you want to share (for example a document attachment, link, or like). Thanks!

# data[].attributes.subject
Want to share resources with the rest of us? Add items to this Padlet column by clicking on the "+" sign and populating the stickie that pops up with what you want to share (for example a document attachment, link, or like). Thanks!

# data[].attributes.body
Brian Tsukimura is a professor at California State University, Fresno. His research interests include Reproductive Physiology and Endocrinology, Climate Change Ecophysiology, Invasive Species Biology, and Crustacean Biology. Dr. Tsukimura holds a PhD in zoology & endocrinology and master’s in zoology from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He is the treasurer-elect of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology.

# data[].attributes.body
Sarah Bondos is an Associate Professor in the College of Medicine at Texas A&M University, where her research focuses on understanding functional diversity in intrinsically disordered proteins and engineering functionalized biomaterials.  This second branch of research led her found Bondwell Technologies in 2017, for which she currently serves as its Chief Scientific Officer.  Sarah has won several mentoring awards from TAMU’s Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Genetics, which encompasses 80 students and >100 faculty across 3 colleges.  She became involved in addressing issues surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion while serving as the chair of the Genetics Student Mentoring Committee.  She served as co-PI on a NIH T32 Supplement, running a series of workshops to improve faculty advising and mentoring and enhance the sensitivity of faculty to issues involving diversity, equity and inclusion.  In the Biophysical Society, Sarah was a member of the Biophysical Society’s Committee for Professional Opportunities for Women from 2016-2022, During this time she organized workshops on Designing and implementing strategies to prevent and recover from burnout, Beyond reporting: How to be an ally to those experiencing harassment, and Rebuilding Research Group Momentum During the COVID-19 Era.  She has volunteered as a mentor for BPS’s Speed Mentoring and a panelist for the Postdoc to Faculty Q&A (2014-12016)   Sarah is currently president-elect of the Gibbs Society of Biological Thermodynamics.

# data[].attributes.headline
An introduction to the three challenges LED-BIO aims to address

# data[].attributes.subject
An introduction to the three challenges LED-BIO aims to address

# data[].attributes.body
Dr. Taylor Lighter is a co-PI on the LED-BIO project and a Research Coordinator at Quality Education for Minorities Network (QEM). At QEM she provides support for the Lumina Foundation and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grant-funded projects by managing their daily operation and conducting research. She obtained her Ph.D. from Virginia Tech in the area of Engineering Education.

# data[].attributes.headline
Hashtags for LED-BIO 2023: #scidiversity #ledbio #inclusioninstem

# data[].attributes.subject
Hashtags for LED-BIO 2023: #scidiversity #ledbio #inclusioninstem

# data[].attributes.body
Ashanti Edwards has managed and administered multiple federally funded programs, such as NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates, NIH T-32s, and an NCI U01. She is responsible for the professional development and diversity and inclusion programs at the Society. She is the PI on the NIH-funded MOSAIC grant, Co-PI on the NIH IPERT grant, and NSF FRED grants, both of which focus on career development, but from different angles. Each grant recruits and focuses on members of URGs, providing professional skills necessary for career success. Ms. Edwards also serves as the liaison to multiple committees at ASCB, including Minority Affairs Committee, Women in Cell Biology, the Committee for Postdocs and Students, and the LGBTQ+ committee. She is experienced in the recruitment, professional development, and support of individuals from URGs in science. Ms. Edwards has a strong track record of promoting diversity in science.

# data[].attributes.body
Dr. Candice Etson, Assistant Professor of Biochemistry at Wesleyan University and member of the ACCESS Steering Committee. Etson has played key roles in developing new initiatives and disseminating ACCESS work (Etson et al., 2021). Dr. Etson previously served on the BPS Committee for Inclusion and Diversity (CID) for two three-year terms, and has been reappointed to serve as a boundary spanner between ACCESS and CID. She has served in the role of CID Chair since July 2022. She served for multiple years as a discipline vice-chair in molecular biology and biochemistry for the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students. She is one of our LED-BIO Co-PIs.

# data[].attributes.body
Robin Greenler works with faculty and future faculty to support the development of equitable, inclusive, and culturally competent approaches to teaching and learning in STEM fields.   As Interim Associate Director for the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL) at University of Wisconsin Madison, Robin engages national networks in support of evidenced-based and equitable practices for STEM faculty.  Robin is part of a team that is developing the Inclusive STEM Teaching MOOC.

# data[].attributes.body
Dr. Holly Boettger-Tong is a Professor in the Department of Biology and Chair of the Division of Science and Mathematics at Wesleyan College, and President of the Association of Southeastern Biologists (2023-2025). Her lab examines the role of retinoids in the control of uterine smooth muscle cell biology and explores the influence of environmental contaminants on Danio rerio development. Recent grants include an NSF S-STEM award, designed to support the Student Preparation and Retention Collaborative (SPARC) Scholars Program, which aims to improve STEM retention and graduate outcomes for socioeconomically disadvantaged, high achieving undergraduate students. Holly has worked with a diversity of Colleges and K-12 partners in the context of Math Science Partnership (MSP) and GEAR UP funded collaborations. Prior to her arrival at Wesleyan, Holly was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Baylor College of Medicine, where she worked on exon trapping the mouse Y chromosome and on characterization of the Juvenile Spermatogonial Depletion (Jsd) mutant mouse; at Baylor she mentored undergraduate, graduate and medical students. Prior to her work at Baylor, Holly was a Postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas Medical Center, Houston, in the Department of Pharmacology. She earned her M.S. and Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Alabama, Birmingham. Holly and her husband John are blessed with three adult children.

# data[].attributes.body
Jennifer Pesanelli is the Executive Officer of the Biophysical Society (BPS), a 7,000 member organization with robust meetings, publications, and professional development programs for scientists working at the interface of physical and life sciences. Jennifer is a Certified Association Executive (CAE) with over 25 years of experience working with scientific, non-profit organizations. Prior to joining BPS, Jennifer was the Deputy Executive Director for the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) where she worked with multiple member and client societies in addition to overseeing FASEB programs and operations. She is a member of the American Society for Association Executives, the Council of Engineering and Scientific Society Executives, and the Society for Scholarly Publishing for which she served on the Board of Directors from 2015-2017 before serving as President in 2018.

# data[].attributes.body
Robin Greenler works with faculty and future faculty to support the development of equitable, inclusive, and culturally competent approaches to teaching and learning in STEM fields.   As Interim Associate Director for the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL) at University of Wisconsin Madison, Robin engages national networks in support of evidenced-based and equitable practices for STEM faculty.  Robin is part of a team that is developing the Inclusive STEM Teaching MOOC.

# data[].attributes.body
Verónica Segarra, Ph.D. completed her Ph.D. in Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale. As an undergraduate, she completed a B.S. in Biochemistry and a B.A. in Chemistry at the University of Miami. From 2015-2022 she was an Assistant Professor of Biology at High Point University (HPU), a private regional college in High Point, NC, where she earned tenure and promotion to Associate Professor in the spring of 2022. From 2020-2022, she served as the Interim Chair of Biology at HPU. She is currently Associate Professor and the Maryland E-Nnovation Endowed Chair in Biological Sciences and Chemistry at Goucher College. Her contributions to science have come in the form of research breakthroughs in cell biology, cellular self-eating, and membrane traffic. Her lab at Goucher College is not only the home base for her research program, but a place where undergraduate students receive one‐on‐one mentoring as they strive to develop their identity in science and research. Dr. Segarra co-founded and co-directs the Alliance to Catalyze Change for Equity in STEM Success (ACCESS; NSF 1744098) organization, a group of scientific society diversity-focused committees coming together to exchange promising practices and data. She is also co-PI on the ADVANCE Partnership grant that is sponsoring ACCESS growing into a larger network of societies, known as ACCESS+ (NSF 2017953). Most recently, Dr. Segarra and her ACCESS team received a BIO-LEAPS grant to establish a Research Coordination Network that aims to crowdsource evidence-based solutions to persistent cultural challenges scientific societies face (NSF 2134725). This is the grant that funds our LED-BIO meeting.

# data[].attributes.body
Dr. Candice Etson, Assistant Professor of Biochemistry at Wesleyan University and member of the ACCESS Steering Committee. Etson has played key roles in developing new initiatives and disseminating ACCESS work (Etson et al., 2021). Dr. Etson previously served on the BPS Committee for Inclusion and Diversity (CID) for two three-year terms, and has been reappointed to serve as a boundary spanner between ACCESS and CID. She has served in the role of CID Chair since July 2022. She served for multiple years as a discipline vice-chair in molecular biology and biochemistry for the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students. She is one of our LED-BIO Co-PIs.

# data[].attributes.body
Linda Hyman is Director of Education at MBL and oversees all MBL educational programs. Before MBL, Hyman served as the Associate Provost at Boston University School of Medicine and Professor of Microbiology, where she was the PI on several grants that emphasized PD, including an NIH BEST award. Her experience includes outreach/diversity as the PI of a research training program and an NSF INCLUDES award.

# data[].attributes.body
Dr. Taylor Lighter is a co-PI on the LED-BIO project and a Research Coordinator at Quality Education for Minorities Network (QEM). At QEM she provides support for the Lumina Foundation and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grant-funded projects by managing their daily operation and conducting research. She obtained her Ph.D. from Virginia Tech in the area of Engineering Education.

# data[].attributes.body
Mercy is the Executive Director at QUALITY EDUCATION FOR MINORITIES NETWORK (QEM). Mercy has expertise in the design and implementation of capacity building and educational research projects focused on advancing the academic and research goals of students and faculty at minority-serving institutions (MSIs). Her work is centered on efforts to broaden the participation of groups historically underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and careers. She is PI/Co-PI on several major grants focused on combating disparities in STEM educational and career outcomes among underrepresented minorities. She has co-authored several articles about research productivity at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs).

# data[].attributes.body
Verónica Segarra, Ph.D. completed her Ph.D. in Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale. As an undergraduate, she completed a B.S. in Biochemistry and a B.A. in Chemistry at the University of Miami. From 2015-2022 she was an Assistant Professor of Biology at High Point University (HPU), a private regional college in High Point, NC, where she earned tenure and promotion to Associate Professor in the spring of 2022. From 2020-2022, she served as the Interim Chair of Biology at HPU. She is currently Associate Professor and the Maryland E-Nnovation Endowed Chair in Biological Sciences and Chemistry at Goucher College. Her contributions to science have come in the form of research breakthroughs in cell biology, cellular self-eating, and membrane traffic. Her lab at Goucher College is not only the home base for her research program, but a place where undergraduate students receive one‐on‐one mentoring as they strive to develop their identity in science and research. Dr. Segarra co-founded and co-directs the Alliance to Catalyze Change for Equity in STEM Success (ACCESS; NSF 1744098) organization, a group of scientific society diversity-focused committees coming together to exchange promising practices and data. She is also co-PI on the ADVANCE Partnership grant that is sponsoring ACCESS growing into a larger network of societies, known as ACCESS+ (NSF 2017953). Most recently, Dr. Segarra and her ACCESS team received a BIO-LEAPS grant to establish a Research Coordination Network that aims to crowdsource evidence-based solutions to persistent cultural challenges scientific societies face (NSF 2134725). This is the grant that funds our LED-BIO meeting.

# data[].attributes.body
Simone Soso is the Assistant Director of Research & Workforce Development at MSI STEM Research & Development Consortium and former Program Director of QEM. She has a background in animal ecology. Her years as an AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the NSF added to her expertise in science policy, building collaborative partnerships, and diversifying the STEM workforce through systemic change efforts. She is LED-BIO's Communication Strategist.

# data[].attributes.body
As the Chief Executive Officer of The American Society for Cell Biology, Dr. Rebecca Alvania leads a global scientific society dedicated to advancing cell biology research. The ASCB hosts scientific meetings, publishes peer-reviewed journals, offers professional development programs, and engages in advocacy, education and outreach to promote basic science research. Prior to leading ASCB, Dr. Alvania served as the Assistant Director of Journals at The American Society for Microbiology, where she managed editorial and publishing operations and oversaw the successful launch of Microbiology Spectrum, ASM’s high-volume Gold Open Access journal. Dr. Alvania previously served as the Director of Editorial Development at Rockefeller University Press, Executive Editor of The Journal of Cell Biology, Scientific Editor at Neuron, Editorial Project Manager for Review Strategy at Cell Press, and Editor of Trends in Cell Biology. Dr. Alvania holds a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, an M.A. in Science Writing from The Johns Hopkins University, and an M.P.H. in Global Health from Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.

# data[].attributes.body
Deanna Clemmer was a LED-BIO participant in 2022 and currently serves as a Science Ambassador for LED-BIO in 2023. Her love for science began when she found a decent, old microscope in a Goodwill on a Saturday afternoon when she was 7 years old. From science fairs to community outreach, Deanna’s love for the world of research grew and bloomed when she began college at High Point University in 2014. Between her involvement in most of the musical groups on campus and classes, she found a natural talent in the lab setting, working in various research labs until the day she graduated. She is currently a 2nd-year graduate student in the lab of Dr. Harry Taylor at Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, NY. Their lab studies the interplay between HIV-1, host metabolism, innate immunity, and inflammation in the context of both acute and chronic infection with the goal of ameliorating the burden of co-morbidities in people living with HIV. When she’s not in the lab, she can be found playing one of her many instruments, hiking, reading, or following her passions through outreach and volunteer work. After obtaining her PhD, Deanna aspires to continue her work in virus associated inflammation and head her own lab that provides research opportunities to underrepresented students.

# data[].attributes.body
Dr. Criswell is an Associate Professor at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) and the Program Director for the Translational Biotechnology Master of Science graduate program. Her current research areas of focus include the effects of age and sex on skeletal muscle regeneration and the development of  engineered neuroendocrine tissue that can mimic the changes that occur in women as they age (adolescence – puberty – child-bearing – peri-menopause – post-menopause). In addition to her research, Dr. Criswell is actively involved in many diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in her department, at her institution, and at the national level. She is a leader in her academic institution’s Women in Medicine and Science (WIMS) Committee as the  Education and Research Subcommittee (Member 2018-Present; Chair, 2019-2024) and as WIMS Full Committee Chair (2022-2023). Dr. Criswell served as co-leader of the Biomedical Sciences Graduate School Committee on Racial Equity (CORE) (2020-2021), which met with graduate students and postdocs to determine the DEI concerns and issues that are present at the academic institution.  This led to the preparation of the CORE report that was submitted to the Dean of the Graduate School and to the Institutions’ larger Racial Equity Task Force and led to the formation of the Biomedical Sciences Graduate School’s standing committee: Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity Accelerator (IDEA), which she now co-chairs. At the national level, Dr. Criswell served as the Chair of the Tissue Engineering Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS) from 2019-2023, and is still a current active member. She is also a founding member and the current Vice President of the North Carolina chapter of the Association of Women in Science (AWIS).

# data[].attributes.body
Dr. Bradley Carl is a Scientist and a Co-Director and founder of the Wisconsin Evaluation Collaborative (WEC), housed within the Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER) at UW-Madison. He is the PI or Co-PI on more than 25 current and completed grants totaling more than $2.5 million. His current work focuses on partnerships with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, Milwaukee Public Schools, education-based professional associations, and other agencies evaluating programs and initiatives at the PreK-12 level, particularly around educator evaluation and school accountability systems. He serves on several state-level advisory committees on these topics, in addition to frequent presentations and publications. Prior to joining WCER, Dr. Carl worked for the Office of Educational Accountability at the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, the Center on Education and Work at UW-Madison, and the American Institutes for Research in Washington, D.C. He holds degrees from Hamline University (B.A., International Studies and History) and Michigan State University (Ph.D., Sociology-Urban Studies).

# data[].attributes.body
Peter Van Do is an award-winning leader with 18+ years of experience in the global non-profit and higher education sectors (The Endocrine Society, University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, Cornell University, and Harvard University). Throughout his career, Peter has demonstrated expertise in Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Management, Project, Program, & Event Leadership, Fundraising & Philanthropy, Policy Development & Execution, Stakeholder Education, Time & Change Management, and Community Development & Outreach. In addition, Peter has acted as a professor in Ethnic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University. Specifically, Peter has taught topics in popular culture, psychological oppression, restorative practice, mutual aid, and Vietnamese American/Southeast Asian American history

# data[].attributes.body
Dr. Rebecca Campbell-Montalvo is a cultural anthropologist who focuses on understanding how people are served by institutions, such as schools. Her work in education spans K-doctoral+, with an emphasis on how linguistic, racial, and ethnic groups experience K-12 resource access as well as how women, underrepresented racial/ethnic and LGBTQIA+ groups persist in undergraduate, graduate, professorial, and industry STEM contexts, with an emphasis in engineering and biology. Her book with Lexington Books explores the multi-level intersecting factors affecting how Indigenous Latinx K-12 students are understood and served in the U.S. South. In addition, Campbell-Montalvo is PI or Co-PI on three NSF projects totaling more than $6,000,000 in funding. First, Campbell-Montalvo serves as PI on the most recent award, which is a 4-year longitudinal exploration of the climate, social network, and cultural model factors that retain people in engineering graduate school and the workforce. Second, she serves as Co-PI and supports the qualitative research on a 5-year INCLUDES Collaborative Change Consortia that promotes STEM and Computing training for youth. Third, and beginning its fifth year on its current funding, she is co-PI on a research coordination network in biology education and biology education research through the Inclusive Environments and Metrics in Biology Education and Research network. In addition, she is an editorial board member on the Journal of Research in Science Teaching.

# data[].attributes.body
Lisa Whitenack is an Associate Professor of Biology and Geology at Allegheny College in Meadville, PA. Her scientific research investigates the evolution of morphology, especially in predator-prey relationships through geologic time. Her primary area of study is the evolution and biomechanics of shark teeth across their 400 million year evolutionary history. Dr. Whitenack’s other area of scholarship is in K-undergraduate STEM education, from pedagogy to DEIJ and access. These research areas intersect in her work on identifying, understanding, and mitigating barriers to inclusion for people interested in working and staying in the field of “shark science” and other areas of biological research. She is the former chair and member of the Equity and Diversity Committee for the American Elasmobranch Society (AES), and will begin a second term on the AES Board of Directors in January 2024. She is also the former chair of the Education Council for the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB) and a member of SICB’s Broadening Participation committee. Outside of her academic identity, Dr. Whitenack is also a baker, musician, crafter, and parent to two science-loving music kiddos.

# data[].attributes.body
Nazila Jamshidi, a DEI Manager at the Endocrine Society, embodies a strong commitment to fostering inclusive societies and sustainable development. With a decade-long career in inclusive international development and a passion for promoting gender and diversity, she has dedicated herself to empowering marginalized communities through initiatives in international development, foreign aid, and institution building. Nazila's journey began with a close examination of human rights barriers, gender equality, and social justice across various provinces in Afghanistan. She has collaborated with organizations such as the UN, USAID, and IFRC to promote gender equality and diversity. Nazila's academic accomplishments include earning degrees from Georgetown and Columbia University.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Leveraging, Enhancing and Developing Biology (LED-BIO)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Leveraging, Enhancing and Developing Biology (LED-BIO)

# data[].attributes.body
Dr. Bradley Carl is a Scientist and a Co-Director and founder of the Wisconsin Evaluation Collaborative (WEC), housed within the Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER) at UW-Madison. He is the PI or Co-PI on more than 25 current and completed grants totaling more than $2.5 million. His current work focuses on partnerships with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, Milwaukee Public Schools, education-based professional associations, and other agencies evaluating programs and initiatives at the PreK-12 level, particularly around educator evaluation and school accountability systems. He serves on several state-level advisory committees on these topics, in addition to frequent presentations and publications. Prior to joining WCER, Dr. Carl worked for the Office of Educational Accountability at the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, the Center on Education and Work at UW-Madison, and the American Institutes for Research in Washington, D.C. He holds degrees from Hamline University (B.A., International Studies and History) and Michigan State University (Ph.D., Sociology-Urban Studies).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

# data[].attributes.body
Deanna Clemmer was a LED-BIO participant in 2022 and currently serves as a Science Ambassador for LED-BIO in 2023. Her love for science began when she found a decent, old microscope in a Goodwill on a Saturday afternoon when she was 7 years old. From science fairs to community outreach, Deanna’s love for the world of research grew and bloomed when she began college at High Point University in 2014. Between her involvement in most of the musical groups on campus and classes, she found a natural talent in the lab setting, working in various research labs until the day she graduated. She is currently a 2nd-year graduate student in the lab of Dr. Harry Taylor at Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, NY. Their lab studies the interplay between HIV-1, host metabolism, innate immunity, and inflammation in the context of both acute and chronic infection with the goal of ameliorating the burden of co-morbidities in people living with HIV. When she’s not in the lab, she can be found playing one of her many instruments, hiking, reading, or following her passions through outreach and volunteer work. After obtaining her PhD, Deanna aspires to continue her work in virus associated inflammation and head her own lab that provides research opportunities to underrepresented students.

# data[].attributes.body
Sakib Hussen is a freshman at Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland, double majoring in computer science and data science. He is passionate about using technology to solve real-world problems and making a positive impact on the world. He is particularly interested in machine learning and artificial intelligence, and he sees these technologies as having the potential to revolutionize many aspects of our lives.

# data[].attributes.headline
Scientific Society Case Studies in DEIA: The Book

# data[].attributes.subject
Scientific Society Case Studies in DEIA: The Book

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Lexington Books , a publisher affiliated with Rowman & Littlefield, is very interested in our book and has commissioned a book proposal. We are organizing the proposal, and as part of that process, we are collecting titles, abstracts, author bylines, and author bios. These will all be included in the proposal.

We are hoping to submit the proposal by the beginning of December. For this reason, we are recruiting authors like you. Thanks for your interest!

Why case studies? Case studies can be a powerful tool in revealing process and implementation details that can help societies take action. With this in mind we envision that each chapter/case study will be composed of the following sections

To secure a spot for your chapter/case study in the book proposal, we are asking that you submit drafts of the first three sections (marked with an asterisk*) by December 1st, 2023 by file upload. Link for upload will be shared once you declare the intention to submit a draft of these elements.

In case you are curious, the chapter word limit is flexible. We hope that you will feel empowered to take the space you need but be as concise as possible to facilitate readability of the case studies. More about formatting requirements and style will be shared once we have entered the chapter writing phase.

We (the editors; see end of email for list) anticipate the book proposal disposition to arrive by late-January 2024 and Chapter/Case Study manuscript to be due by end of May 2024. Chapters will then be sent out to review. This timeline is subject to change as the process moves forward. We plan to keep all authors informed with a number of option check-in/update meetings.

With this in mind, as you make your decisions and think about ideas for case studies, we want to make ourselves available to meet and answer all your questions. We will hold interest meetings in September, October, and November, leading up to the abstract submission deadline of December 1st, 2023.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Leveraging, Enhancing and Developing Biology (LED-BIO)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Leveraging, Enhancing and Developing Biology (LED-BIO)

# data[].attributes.body
Abdul K. Siam is a sophomore double majoring in Computer Science and Data Science and minoring in Business Management at Goucher College in Baltimore, MD. Aside from academics, Abdul is the Academic Honor Board Chair, a member of the Board of Trustees Goucher College Student Success Committee, an Arsht Presidential Diplomat, and a Resident Assistant. He is leading the Goucher College Student Government Association as the Attorney General with the vision of creating an environment where everyone’s voice will be heard.

# data[].attributes.body
Pam is Program Manager at the American Society for Cell Biology. Her interests are in social impact, health policy, client/community engagement, and health equity. She holds a M.P.H. from the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Before ASCB, Pam was Accreditation Coordinator at the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN).