Angela C. Johnson, professor of educational studies, was recently awarded a $103,473 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) in support of her project titled: “Centering Women of Color in STEM: Data-Driven Opportunities for Inclusion.” The two-year grant began September 2019, and will fund a continuation of Johnson’s collaborative research with Apriel Hodari of Eureka Scientific, Inc. to identify and share what helps women of color thrive in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.
Johnson and Hodari have worked over the past two years with SMCM undergraduate students Rose Young ’20 and Elizabeth Mulvey ’20 to conduct and analyze interviews with faculty, staff, and students at SMCM and two United Kingdom institutions. The researchers compiled these fine-scale qualitative data from the interviews along with broad-scale quantitative data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) in collaboration with Eleanor Sayre, associate professor of physics at Kansas State University. They then identified major themes to provide guidance for organizations committed to creating better, more inclusive, environments for women of color in physics, math, computer sciences and other typical STEM fields. Results thus far include surprising patterns about institutions where women of color study STEM fields, and have been shared at conferences in Washington D.C. and London, England. Results will also be shared at the winter meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers in January 2020.
This recent award will allow the investigators to:
- expand their dataset to additional STEM disciplines using data from IPEDS
- develop a public online portal for the final database and study user analytics to improve the portal’s utility
- identify institutions where higher than typical numbers or percentages of women of color graduate in each discipline and work with these institutions to serve as models or case studies for others
- present research findings from the database and make STEM professionals aware of the portal.
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1933383. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
