External Advisory Board
Dr. Cecilia Conrad
Managing Director of Fellows, Awards and Exploratory Philanthropy at the MacArthur Foundation. Dr. Conrad has served as Vice President for Academic Affairs and acting President of Pomona College. An economist by training, a lot of her research has focused on economic inequality, and she has a long history of working on gender- and racial/ethnic-related issues in academia. Dr. Conrad has also been actively engaged in mentorship and faculty development (particularly for faculty of color) and in promoting education (especially undergraduate education) throughout her career. In 2002, Dr. Conrad was recognized as California’s Carnegie Professor of the Year, a national award that recognizes faculty members for their achievement as undergraduate professors.
Dr. Luis Ricardo Fraga
Luis Ricardo Fraga is the Co-Director of the Institute for Latino Studies, Arthur Foundation Endowed Professor of Transformative Latino Leadership, and Joseph and Elizabeth Robbie Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame. He is a native of Corpus Christi, Texas. He received his A.B. from Harvard University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Rice University. His primary interests are in American politics where he specializes in the politics of race and ethnicity, Latino politics, immigration policy, education politics, voting rights policy, and urban politics. In 2011, President Barack Obama appointed him to the President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics. In 2011, Hispanic Business named Dr. Fraga as one of the top "100 Influentials" in the U.S.
Dr. Aída Hurtado
Luis Leal Endowed Chair and Professor and Chair of the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. Hurtado is a social psychologist whose research focuses on the social, political, and economic processes of racialization, genderization, ethnicization, class construction, and sexualities. The majority of her work is on feminist theory, feminist issues, and Latino educational achievement. She is the author of several books. Dr. Hurtado has received the Women of Color Psychologies Award from the Association of Women in Psychology. In addition, Professor Hurtado was a recipient of the American Educational Research Association’s SAGE Award for distinguished contributions to gender equity in education research.
Dr. Felice J. Levine
Executive Director of the American Educational Research Association Washington DC. Dr. Levine is very well known among the foundations and the professional organizations for her work on diversity, gender, and STEM education. Previously, Dr. Levine was Executive Officer of the American Sociological Association. She was also the Director of the Law and Social Science Program at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and a Senior Research Social Scientist at the American Bar Foundation.
Dr. Patrice McDermott
Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), Dr. McDermott oversees a wide range of institutional change projects including the Gates Foundation t-STEM Partnership, the NSF Innovation through Institutional Integration Grant and the NSF "ON Ramps" Associate Professor Research Acceleration Grant. She holds an appointment as senior scholar at AAC&U-PKAL where she works on issues related to recruiting, advancing and retaining URM women faculty in STEM. Dr. McDermott also serves on the board of the Society for STEM Women of Color (SSWOC) and as senior advisor to the National STEM Gender Equity Coalition, the Teaching to Increase Diversity and Equity in STEM (TIDES) Project, and the UMBC NIH BUILD Grant. Dr. McDermott was the recipient of the UMBC Presidential Women's Achievement Award and the National Women's Studies Association Book Award.
Dr. Loretta Moore
Associate Vice President for Research and Scholarly Engagement and Professor of Computer Science, Jackson State University (JSU). Dr. Moore is the Principal Investigator on a grant from the National Science Foundation's ADVANCE program at JSU. Moreover, she serves as a Commissioner for the Computing Accreditation Commission of ABET; is a member of the Board of the Association of Departments of Computing at Minority Institutions; previously served on the U.S. Army Science Board; and currently holds membership in the organizations of the Association for Computing Machinery, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the American Association of University Women..
Dr. Richard Tapia
University Professor and Maxfield-Oshman Professor of Engineering, Rice University. Due to his efforts, Rice University has become a national leader in producing women and underrepresented minority Ph.Ds in the mathematical sciences. Dr. Tapia has been named one of 20 most influential leaders in minority math education by the National Research Council; listed as one of the 100 most influential Hispanics in the U.S. by Hispanic Business magazine (2008); and given the “Professor of the Year” award by the Association of Hispanic School Administrators. In 2011, President Obama named Dr. Tapia one of the recipients of the National Medal of Science, the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on scientists and engineers.