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Tara C. Langus is a Ph.D. student pursuing her degree in STEM Education at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR). Prior to graduate school, she completed Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Biology in which she studied insect immunology and chemical ecology. She has six years of teaching experience and serves as the instructor for the Women in Science & Engineering Program (WiSE), an academic based resource and professional development program for first-year undergraduates pursuing STEM majors. Her research interests include student attitudes toward diversity, integrating socioscientific and sociopolitical issues in the college STEM classroom, and increasing the representation and retention of underrepresented minorities in STEM.

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Nelson Pearson is a Ph.D. student at the University of Nevada, Reno. His research interest includes social networks and the integration of diverse populations, engineering culture, supporting a sense of belongingness, as well as engineering pedagogy. His education includes a B.S. and M.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Nevada, Reno.

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Justin C. Major is a third-year Engineering Education Ph.D student and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow at Purdue University. Prior to graduate school, he completed Bachelor's degrees in both Mechanical Engineering and Secondary Mathematics Education at the University of Nevada, Reno with a focus on K-12 Engineering Education. Justin's current research focuses on the storied experiences of socioeconomically disadvantaged students at intersections of race/ethnicity, class, and gender in engineering education.

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Allison Godwin, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Engineering Education at Purdue University. Her research focuses what factors influence diverse students to choose engineering and stay in engineering through their careers and how different experiences within the practice and culture of engineering foster or hinder belongingness and identity development. Dr. Godwin graduated from Clemson University with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and Ph.D. in Engineering and Science Education. Her research earned her a National Science Foundation CAREER Award focused on characterizing latent diversity, which includes diverse attitudes, mindsets, and approaches to learning, to understand engineering students’ identity development. She has won several awards for her research including the 2016 American Society of Engineering Education Educational Research and Methods Division Best Paper Award and the 2018 Benjamin J. Dasher Best Paper Award for the IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference. She has also been recognized for the synergy of research and teaching as an invited participant of the 2016 National Academy of Engineering Frontiers of Engineering Education Symposium and the Purdue University 2018 recipient of School of Engineering Education Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching and the 2018 College of Engineering Exceptional Early Career Teaching Award.

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Adam Kirn is an Assistant Professor of Engineering Education at University of Nevada, Reno. His research focuses on the interactions between engineering cultures, student motivation, and their learning experiences. His projects involve the study of student perceptions, beliefs and attitudes towards becoming engineers, their problem solving processes, and cultural fit. His education includes a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, a M.S. in Bioengineering and Ph.D. in Engineering and Science Education from Clemson University.

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