Importance of Diversity Symposium – Engineering Graduate Student Advisory Committee

Join for the inaugural Importance of Diversity Symposium!

Thursday, April 13 |1 to 5:30 pm | CSL B02 Auditorium | RVSP by April 6, 2017.

Keynote: The Importance of Diversity…Beyond the Surface

By: Monique Head, Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Studies at Morgan State University

The keynote will emphasize how diversity can be viewed as being more than one’s gender, race or identity but rather diversity of thought, which typically comes from the intersection of life experiences, background, culture and perspective. When looking beyond the surface, embracing diversity in terms of these components can provide value, thereby enabling richer college experiences, workforce diversity to solve problems of the future, and beyond. Dr. Head will also discuss the role of HBCUs and their on-going contributions to diversity.

The Inclusive Workplace Panel Members

Jamie Walters, Senior Director of Diversity & Inclusion at AbbVie
Jessica Roeschlein-Lindsay, Recruiter at Ameren, Inc.
William Hart, Purdue Partnerships Manager at Sandia National Laboratories
Ruby Mendenhall, Associate Professor of African American Studies
Kelly Cross, Visiting Research Scientist in the Department of Bioengineering

Diversity in Motion: Interactive Knowledge Exchange

Joe Minarik, Education Specialist in the Office of Inclusion & Intercultural Relations

Personal Reflections on Diversity

Dr. Phoebe E. Lenear, Technology Transfer Officer at U.S. Army Engineering Research & Development Center
Ivanhoe Favila, Assistant Dean and Director of Morrill Engineering Program

Schedule

All events take place in the Coordinated Science Lab (CSL) B02 Auditorium.

Time	Event
12:30 to 1:00 PM	Check-in in Lobby
1:00 to 1:50 PM	Welcome and Keynote Speaker, Dr. Monique Head
1:50 to 2:00 PM	BREAK
2:00 to 3:00 PM	The Inclusive Workplace: Panel Discussion
3:00 to 3:15 PM	BREAK
3:15 to 4:00 PM	Diversity in Motion: Interactive Knowledge Exchange
4:00 to 4:10 PM	BREAK
4:10 to 5:00 PM	Personal Reflections on Diversity
5:00 to 5:30 PM	Networking: Creating your Own Connections Lobby of B02 Auditorium / Refreshments

Speakers’ Biographies

Dr. Monique Head, Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Studies, Morgan State University

Dr. Monique Hite Head is a native of Newark, Delaware. She received her bachelor and master of civil engineering degrees from the University of Delaware in 2000 and 2002, respectively, and her doctorate in structural engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in May 2007. Currently, Dr. Head is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering. Prior to this position, she was a tenure-track Assistant Professor at Texas A&M University. Dr. Head’s research and teaching interests include experimental testing, detailed analytical modeling using state-of-the-art software to study the responses of bridges, structural dynamics, performance-based bridge design using fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composite materials, and seismic retrofitting of bridges (earthquake engineering).

Since joining the Morgan family in 2011, Dr. Head has secured several grants involving cutting-edge research projects to provide experiential learning and discovery opportunities to both undergraduate and graduate students. Namely, students have been challenged to find solutions to real-world problems facing our nation’s transportation infrastructure through the application of fundamental engineering principles. Being able to provide solutions to address our nation’s deteriorating transportation infrastructure is essential to Dr. Head’s mission for improving the resiliency of our nation’s bridges while protecting lives, especially during extreme events like earthquakes. Dr. Head has published in top-tier journals, and is a member of several national professional organizations. In addition to her national and international service, she enjoys facilitating engineering outreach activities for middle and high school students to stimulate an excitement for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). She is passionate about increasing graduation and retention rates, especially of female engineering students and students from diverse backgrounds, and is focused on enhancing research and innovation.

Dr. Ruby Mendenhall, Associate Professor, University of Illinois

Ruby Mendenhall is an Associate Professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She holds joint faculty appointments in Sociology, African American Studies, Urban and Regional Planning, Social Work and Gender and Women’s Studies. She is currently a faculty member at the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology and a faculty affiliate at the Institute for Computing in the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Women and Gender in Global Perspective, and Gender and the Cline Center for Democracy. She is the recipient of the Richard and Margaret Romano Professorial Scholar for outstanding achievements in research and leadership on campus. Mendenhall’s research focuses on racial microaggressions in higher education. She examines how living in racially segregated neighborhoods with high levels of violence affects Black mothers’ mental and physical health using surveys, interviews and genomic analysis. She studies how to recover Black women’s lost history using topic modeling and data visualization to examine over 800,000 documents from 1740 to 2014. Mendenhall also does research on the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).

Dr. Kelly Cross, Visiting Research Scientist, Department of Bioengineering

Dr. Cross completed her doctoral program in the Engineering Education department at Virginia Tech in 2015 and worked as a post-doctoral researcher with the Illinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. At UIUC she has collaborated with multiple teams of engineering faculty on implementing and assessing instructional innovation. Dr. Cross is currently a Research Scientist in the Department of Bioengineering working to redesign the curriculum through the NSF funded Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (RED) grant. She is a member of the ASEE Leadership Virtual Community of Practice that organizes and facilitates Safe Zone Training workshops. Dr. Cross has conducted multiple workshops on managing personal bias in STEM, both online and in-person. Dr. Cross’ scholarship investigated student teams in engineering, faculty communities of practice, and the intersectionality of multiple identity dimensions. Her research interests include diversity and inclusion in STEM, intersectionality, teamwork and communication skills, assessment, and identity construction. Her teaching philosophy focuses on student centered approaches such as problem-based learning and culturally relevant pedagogy. Dr. Cross’ complimentary professional activities promote inclusive excellence through collaboration.

Jamie Walters, Senior Director of Diversity & Inclusion, AbbVie

Jamie Walters is the Senior Director of Diversity and Inclusion for AbbVie where she serves as the primary advisor to company leadership on diversity, inclusion and talent-related issues, providing strategic direction, advice and counsel. Prior to joining the D&I team Jamie spent several years leading pharmacovigilance operations teams at AbbVie and Eli Lilly. While in these roles she had an positive impact on the departments’ cultures as evidenced by dramatic improvements in employee survey results in overall culture, work life balance and employee engagement all while driving improved regulatory compliance. Before joining the pharmaceutical industry Jamie was a registered nurse working in multiple teaching hospitals. Her bedside nursing focus was in perianesthesia care and trauma recovery. Jamie holds an associate and bachelor degrees in nursing and a masters in leadership development. Her professional passion is creating a work environment where people can thrive and do their best work. Jamie and her husband have a 17 year old daughter. As a family they love to travel and learn about other cultures, including hosting three exchange students from Europe.

Jessica Roeschlein-Lindsay, Recruiter, Ameren, Inc.

Jessica Lindsay is a Recruiter with Ameren, a Fortune 500 energy company headquartered in St. Louis, MO. She has 6 years of experience in HR, recruiting, and management. Her passion is specifically collegiate recruiting & development which is her current role at Ameren. Jessica’s day to day asks include recruiting and onboarding college students for internships and co-ops; creating and managing events for Ameren’s college program; As well as spending her time on campus speaking to student organizations & conducting workshops. Ameren’s intern and co-op program has steadily grown the over the past 5 years which is the reason Jessica was brought on board. Jessica graduated from Southeast Missouri State University with a Bachelor’s of Science in Public Relations and a minor in Communication Studies.

William Hart, Purdue Partnerships Manager, Sandia National Laboratories

Dr. William Hart is the Purdue Partnerships Manager in the Chief Technology Office at Sandia National Laboratories. In the fall of 2015, Sandia anticipates sending William to Purdue University to build a more formal strategic alliance between Purdue and Sandia. From 2010 to 2015, William served as a manager in the Center for Computing Research at Sandia National Laboratories. He led lab initiatives supporting research in data science and cybersecurity. He was a leader of the PANTHER Grand Challenge research project, which developed scalable geospatial data analysis capabilities, and he led the Cybersecurity Investment Area team. William’s research has focused on optimization techniques, including parallel branch-and-bound, heuristic global optimization, derivative-free local search, and optimization software frameworks. He has used optimization to solve many real-world applications, including computational biology applications, engineering design, logistics planning, and infrastructure security. His research on sensor placement solvers for large-scale water security applications was a finalist for the 2008 INFORMS Edelman Prize. Dr. Hart earned a BA degree cum laude in mathematics from the University of Michigan and MS and PhD degrees in computer science from the University of California, San Diego.

Joe Minarik, Education Specialist, Office of Inclusion & Intercultural Relations

Joe Minarik, MSW, MPP, has been a social work practitioner for many years, focusing on anti-oppression and social justice education in communities, organizations and in higher education settings. He is a coordinator for the Program on Intergroup Relations dialogue program, which offers courses to undergraduate students at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). These courses focus on various social identity categories, including race, disability status, socioeconomic class, political ideology, and resisting marginalization. He is also a Social Work doctoral candidate, with a research focus on state-level direct lobbying. He is an adjunct lecturer at UIUC’s School of Social Work, teaching research methods to social work graduate and undergraduate students. Joe has also been named a Teaching Academy Fellow for Universal Design in Learning by of the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning at UIUC.

Dr. Phoebe E. Lenear, Technology Transfer Officer, U.S. Army Engineering Research & Development Center

With over 30 years’ experience in the workplace, Dr. Phoebe Lenear has served as a faculty member, administrator, program manager, and director of education, training and integration projects. Her positions in academia and the research sector have required extensive communication, collaboration and technical skills. As a program manager at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), she was responsible for the National Computational Science Alliance Partner Relations Program-part of a $35M National Science Foundation project-where she interacted with more than 50 research partners from universities, government, and businesses across the U.S. She has also conducted and facilitated training for military personnel, university faculty and staff. She served on the faculty at Southern Illinois University, where she taught courses in training systems management, distance education and multimedia technologies. She also served as Educational Programs Manager for the NSF Science and Technology Center on Emergent Behaviors of Integrated Cellular Systems ($25M), where she managed the daily operations of the Center’s Education program. Currently, she is employed as Technology Transfer Officer for the U.S. Army Engineering Research and Development Center. In this role, she assists research staff in identifying appropriate authorities and in preparing and negotiating agreements for entering into research and development partnerships with industry, academia, and non-Federal government agencies.

A native of Chicago, Illinois, Dr. Phoebe Lenear holds the Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in General Engineering (Mathematics and Human-Computer Interaction), and the Ph.D. degree in Human Resource Education (Technology Education) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Dr. Lenear is the Founding President and CEO of the Center for Educational Excellence in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (CEESTEM), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization whose goal is to increase underrepresented minority youth participation in the STEM fields by: (1) providing hands-on STEM instruction, mentoring and support to youth enrolled in 5th through 12th grades, (2) involving parents in the education of their children, and (3) engaging youth in the study and appreciation of fine and applied arts. CEESTEM will enroll its first students in the Fall 2017. It has been Dr. Lenear’s desire to return to her roots and encourage youth to be all that they have been called to be. She is fulfilling that desire through CEESTEM. She is dedicated to The Call to mentor and encourage. Her life’s motto is: “If I can help somebody, as I pass along, then my living will not be in vain.”

Ivanhoe Favila, Assistant Dean and Director of Morrill Engineering Program

Ivan Favila is Assistant Dean and Director of the Morrill Engineering Program (MEP) and the Center for Academic Resources in Engineering (CARE) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. As assistant dean, Favila contributes to the various student-centered retention and recruitment activities in the College’s Undergraduate Programs Office. In addition, he advises students on matters related to academic, professional, and personal development. He has over 20 years of experience advising engineering students at public and private institutions, advising student chapters of minority-based engineering organizations, and working with national efforts promoting access and opportunities for underserved populations.