C. V. Dolan (they/them/theirs)
Dolan (they/them/theirs) is a Ph.D. candidate in their fourth year in the Educational Leadership and Policy Studies program at the University of Vermont. Their dissertation research focus is nonbinary college students’ freedom dreams of gender utopia in a post-secondary landscape. Dolan is an aspiring mixed methodologist with the long-term goal of serving as a tenure-track faculty in a HESA graduate program upon completing their doctoral degree in 2023. Following their M.Ed. in HESA at UVM in 2013, Dolan worked for six years as a QT resource professional on college campuses. Dolan also served on a national board as the Trans and Genderqueer Chair for the Consortium of LGBT Resource Professionals in Higher Education, in addition to local community organizing.
Dolan is immensely grateful for Jay’s mentorship as their advisor, and they feel very blessed to co-author with Jay and co-teach with him in the HESA program. Dolan’s identities as a nonbinary and bisexual queer person motivate their scholarship, as they recognize gaps in data collection and identify opportunities for more attuned data analysis when cisgender scholars study trans and nonbinary communities and interpret their findings through cisnormative lenses. Dolan is also a white and Latinx person who navigates the complexities of being seen, recognized, or misinterpreted in their identities and the nuances of fluidity for their race, gender, and sexuality. Epistemologically and ontologically, Dolan values critical race theory, intersectionality, and indigenous paradigms. Specifically, they feel obligated to center the most marginalized and consistently seek to de-center dominance in their teaching, research, and practice. In these ways, Dolan defines, approaches, and works toward collective queer and trans educational liberation.
Jon Freeman (he/him/his)
Jon Freeman is Associate Professor of Psychology at Columbia University and director of the Social Cognitive & Neural Sciences Lab. His research examines how people understand the social world through a coordination of visual, social, and affective processes. In particular, his work focuses on the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying person perception, bias and stereotyping, and the real-time formation and dynamics of social and emotional judgments, including the interplay between social cognition and visual perception. He takes an integrative and multi-level approach that makes use of techniques such as functional neuroimaging, computational modeling, and behavioral paradigms. He is also the developer of the data collection and analysis software, MouseTracker, which uses response-directed hand motion to uncover split-second decision-making.
Freeman is the recipient of a number of awards, including the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the Association for Psychological Science’s Janet T. Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions, and early career awards from the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences, the Social & Affective Neuroscience Society, the Society for Personality & Social Psychology, the International Social Cognition Network, and the Society for Social Neuroscience.
Freeman's advocacy work is focused on blind spots in U.S. STEM diversity efforts, particularly LGBTQ+ disparities in STEM. Since 2018, he has been working to have sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) demographics incorporated into official data collection and reporting systems of the U.S. government and higher education that are used to ensure the equity and inclusion of underrepresented groups in STEM, all while maintaining appropriate privacy and confidentiality standards. Ultimately, this work aims to bring about transformative change in the equity of LGBTQ+ people in STEM and higher education.
Jason C. Garvey (he/him/his)
Dr. Jason C. Garvey (he/him/his) is the Friedman-Hipps Green and Gold Professor of Education with the Higher Education and Student Affairs Administration program at the University of Vermont.
Jay’s scholarship, teaching, and service are closely tied to his educational journey as a queer person. His research examines queer and trans collegians across educational contexts primarily using quantitative methods. Jay often frames his scholarship through critical cultural perspectives, including intersectionality and queer theory, and he foregrounds salient experiences for queer and trans collegians, including identity development, retention, campus climate, and belonging. Jay proudly identifies as a quantitative queer, navigating the borders of post-positivistic quantitative methods and post-structural queerness.
As a public scholar, Jay has collaborated with local and national organizations to promote positive social change for queer and trans collegians, including the Pride Center of Vermont, Campus Pride, ACPA, the Spencer Foundation, and the National Science Foundation. He currently serves as the Executive Associate Editor for the Journal of College Student Development and recently guest-edited a special issue for the Journal of College Student Retention on queer and trans collegians. Prior to his faculty appointments, Jay worked in college student services across a variety of functional areas, including queer and trans student involvement and advocacy, student affairs assessment, residential life, academic advising, and undergraduate research. He received his PhD in College Student Personnel Administration from the University of Maryland with a certificate in Measurement, Statistics, and Evaluation.
Sarah Ingraffea (she/her/hers)
Sarah Ingraffea is a Project Director at AAAS in the Inclusive STEMM Ecosystems for Equity & Diversity (ISEED). Her work includes the AAAS/Subaru Prize for Excellence in Science Books, aiming to inspire curious kids through nonfiction science books. She also works on the Catalyzing a Data Infrastructure to Support LGBTQ Inclusion in STEMM project. This program seeks to build the capacity of postsecondary institutions to effectively and ethically collect and use SOGI data to close opportunity and achievement gaps for LGBTQ+ students and scholars. Her previous work at AAAS focused on K-12 STEMM education, content development for formal and informal resources, science literacy, and inclusion.
Rachel Stivers (she/her/hers)
Rachel Stivers is a Senior Project Associate for the Inclusive STEM Ecosystems for Equity & Diversity (ISEED) Initiative at AAAS, where she assists in the management of several different programs aimed to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM education and the workforce. Prior to joining AAAS, Rachel enjoyed a career in the patient advocacy space, where she became passionate about patient-centered outcomes research as well as increasing diversity in research. Rachel earned a M.A. in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, Washington DC and a B.S. from George Mason University in Criminology, Law and Society with a minor in Women and Gender Studies.
Mario I. Suárez (he/him/él)
Dr. Suárez is an Assistant Professor in the School of Teacher Education and Leadership in the Emma E. Jones College of Education and Human Services at Utah State University. Informed by his experiences as a former high school mathematics teacher and an openly trans man, Mario’s intersectional research agenda broadly asks: How does our understanding(s) of gender and sexuality shape K-12 educational experiences (e.g., standards, curriculum, bathrooms, group placements, sports, STEM, teachers and teaching) for minoritized (e.g., BIPOC, trans, non-binary) students? He tries to answer this question through a primarily critical quantitative lens using nationally representative data, though he also draws on qualitative methods when large data is not available. His most recent work challenges notions of how trans and non-binary youth identities are measured in large-scale surveys used in education research. His work draws from the fields of sociology, demography, gender studies, and policy studies. He received his PhD in Curriculum and Instruction from Texas A&M University with a certificate in Education & Social Sciences Advanced Research Methods (Quantitative).
As a researcher who focuses currently on queer and trans experiences in STEM education a former math teacher, he hopes to help widening the pipeline of queer and trans individuals in STEM careers.
Suzanne Thurston (she/her/hers)
Suzanne Thurston has supported and led education projects at AAAS for more than 20 years. As the Inclusive STEM Ecosystems for Equity and Diversity (ISEED) Deputy Director, her work focuses on developing educational resources and experiences for all K-12 learners and educators in both formal and informal educational settings.
Her current work includes research and development of cutting-edge mobile technologies as a means of bringing new audiences into urban National Parks. She also directs two projects that showcase excellent STEM books and supports using science non-fiction literature in the classroom to pique students' interest and understanding of science.
Thurston believes all students should have opportunities for transformative, meaningful, and culturally representative science experiences throughout their lives so that they can identify and be curious about the science around them and see themselves as a scientist, inventor, storyteller, and advocate.
Travis York (he/him/they)
Travis T. York, Ph.D., is the Director of Inclusive STEMM Ecosystems for Equity & Diversity (ISEED) at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Dr. York’s research and work focus on catalyzing and sustaining systemic change and transformation to achieve inclusive and equitable STEMM talent development. Within AAAS, Dr. York provides leadership to a talented team who collaborates to create systemic change through more than 20 grant-funded projects and initiatives spanning all STEMM fields and the entire educational pathway including the STEMM Opportunity Alliance - recently launched at the White House Summit on STEMM Equity & Excellence, AAAS’s SEA Change Initiative, L’Oreal USA For Women in Science Fellowships, and HBCU Making & Innovation Showcase. Dr. York serves as Principal Investigator of the AAAS Scholarships in STEM Resources & Evaluation Center (S-STEM REC), AAAS Noyce/ARISE (Advancing Research and Innovation in the STEM Education of Preservice Teachers in High-Need School Districts), the AAAS Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) initiatives, and the Catalyzing a Data Infrastructure to Support LGBTQ Inclusion in STEM. Dr. York has authored numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, is active within several professional associations, and serves on the editorial review board of the Journal of Diversity in Higher Education.