2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

1. Dr. Ashleigh Wright University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign [biography]

   Ashleigh R. Wright, PhD is the Associate Director of the Institute for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access and Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Grainger College of Engineering. She is responsible for collaborating with college and departmental leaders and stakeholders to identify needs and priorities, developing and implementing evidence-based strategies, and measuring progress and effectiveness quantitatively against key metrics that promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and access to the undergraduate and graduate student communities. She also conducts research that analyzes trends, driving factors, barriers, and best practices to educate others and support organizational improvement.
   Prior to joining the University, Ashleigh managed and directed many training and pathway programs that support students from underrepresented backgrounds in STEM, and facilitated workshops that enhance the academic, personal, and professional development of students at North Carolina State University and Louisiana State University. She is a member of the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE) and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. She holds degrees in chemistry from Wofford College (B.S.), North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (M.S.), and Louisiana State University (Ph.D.).

2. Prof. Holly M Golecki http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3691-0420 University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign [biography]

   Dr. Holly Golecki (she/her) is a Teaching Assistant Professor in Bioengineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and an Associate in the John A Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University. She holds an appointment at the Carle-Illinois College of Medicine in the Department of Biomedical and Translational Sciences. She is also a core faculty member at the Institute for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access in the College of Engineering. Holly studies biomaterials and soft robotics and their applications in the university classroom, in undergraduate research and in engaging K12 students in STEM. Holly received her BS/MS in Materials Science and Engineering from Drexel University and her PhD in Engineering Sciences from Harvard University.

3. Dr. Jacqueline Henderson Bradley University
4. Rebekka Darner Illinois State University [biography]

   Rebekka Darner, PhD, is the Director of the Center for Mathematics, Science, and Technology (CeMaST) at Illinois State University (ISU). As the leader of CeMaST, her work involves immobilizing broader impacts of ISU scholars' research to extend the benefits of scholarship to the public, enabling evidence-based STEM teaching methods across the K-16 continuum and in informal learning spaces, and supporting broad representation of many perspectives within STEM disciplines. Her research focuses on fostering non-STEM majors' motivation toward informed decision-making, iteratively developing instructional methods that foster critical evaluation of evidence, and fostering STEM majors' motivation toward scientific civic action. Rebekka advises graduate students in these areas of inquiry through ISU's School of Biological Sciences, where she holds tenure. Beyond her professional career, Rebekka enjoys practicing and teaching yoga, teaching childbirth education, gardening, hiking, and traveling with her family to seemingly random locales to support her marathon-running partner.

5. Nafisa Ibrahim http://orcid.org/https://0009-0003-4008-5483 The University of Illinois at Chicago
6. Prof. Brenda Anne Wilson University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign [biography]

   Brenda Anne Wilson, PhD, is currently Professor of Microbiology and Associate Director of Undergraduate Education in the School of Molecular & Cellular Biology, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; Inaugural Professor of Biomedical and Translational Sciences in the Carle Illinois College of Medicine; Professor of Pathobiology in the College of Veterinary Medicine; and Senior Faculty Fellow for National Labs in the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology (AAM) and a member of the AAM Selection Committee, and an American Society for Microbiology (ASM) Distinguished Lecturer. She earned her BA degree in Biochemistry and German from Barnard College. She was a DAAD graduate exchange Fellow in Biochemistry at Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München, Germany. As an AAUW doctoral fellow studying antibiotic biosynthesis, she earned her MA-PhD degrees in Chemistry from Johns Hopkins University. She then undertook her NIH postdoctoral fellowship training in Microbiology at Harvard Medical School, where she began her studies on bacterial protein toxins. Her first tenured faculty appointment was in Biochemistry at Wright State University School of Medicine, Dayton, Ohio. Her current research work focuses on the host-microbe interface, bacterial pathogenesis, microbiomes and their roles in health and disease. She served for 10 years on the Executive Committee of the Great Lakes Regional Center for Excellence in Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases. As Co-Director of the UIUC Center for Zoonoses Research, she fosters cross-campus interactions aimed at promoting the One-Health Initiative and training DVM students in research through summer training experiences. For 20 years she has served as Biosecurity Leader of the Executive Committee of the UIUC Program in Arms Control, Domestic and International Security (ACDIS), engaging in numerous efforts and events promoting scientific literacy and bridging the gap between scientists and educators, policy makers, government officials, and the public. As Director for Undergraduate Education in the School of MCB at UIUC, she oversees the MCB undergraduate and MS graduate programs that deliver education annually to over 14,000 students, including 2,000 MCB majors, 300 Biochemistry majors, 150 Neuroscience majors, and 15 MS in MCB students. In this role, she is a strong advocate for promoting a diverse and welcoming academic community. As the Senior Faculty Fellow in the Office of the Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation at UIUC, she fosters research collaborations in STEM disciplines including building workforce pipelines between scientists at UIUC and the National Labs.

7. Loralyn Cozy
8. Brian J. Bellott Western Illinois University
9. Dr. Mahua Biswas Illinois State University [biography]

   Dr. Mahua Biswas is an Associate Professor of Physics at Illinois State University. She earned her Ph.D. in Physics from Dublin City University, Ireland, and subsequently conducted postdoctoral research at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, New Jersey, USA and Argonne National Laboratory, IL, USA. Dr. Biswas’s research focuses on nanopatterning inorganic materials for microelectronic and optoelectronic applications. Her work emphasizes spectroscopic characterization techniques to gain mechanistic insights into material growth and properties. She has been the recipient of multiple grants from the National Science Foundation, including the LSAMP award. A strong advocate for STEM education, Dr. Biswas is deeply committed to mentoring and inspiring students in scientific research and academic pursuits.

The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on June 22, 2025, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 25, 2025