STEM and Career and Technical Education

Front and Center: Bringing Marginalized Girls into Focus in

STEM and Career and Technical Education

January 15, 2015

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES

Roy Austin

White House Domestic Policy Council

In March 2014, Roy L. Austin, Jr. joined the White House Domestic Policy Council as Deputy Assistant to the President for the Office of Urban Affairs, Justice and Opportunity. In this position, Austin coordinates the formulation and implementation of policy covering criminal justice, civil rights, housing, labor, human services and initiatives such as Promise Zones. Austin is also a member of the My Brother’s Keeper Task Force.

Austin began his career as an HonorsTrial Attorney with the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division investigating and prosecuting hate crime and police brutality cases around the country. After approximately five years, he joined Keker & Van Nest LLP in San Francisco, as an associate working on complex civil and white-collar criminal cases, including a successful pro-bono civil lawsuit aimed at preventing racial profiling by the California Highway Patrol. In 2002, he joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia where he prosecuted domestic violence, adult and child sexual assault, human trafficking, homicide and fraud and public corruption cases. He left in 2007 to become a partner at McDermott, Will & Emery working primarily on white collar criminal cases. In 2009, Austin returned to the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office asa Senior Assistant United States Attorney and Coordinator of the D.C. Human Trafficking TaskForce.

In January 2010, Austin was appointed Deputy Assistant Attorney General (DAAG), Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice. As a DAAG, Austin supervised the Criminal Section, and the Special Litigation Section’s law enforcement (police departments, corrections and juvenile justice) portfolio. In addition, he supervised work under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Person Act (RLUIPA) and Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. Among numerous other matters, Austin worked on cases involving the New Orleans Police Department, Missoula (MT) law enforcement and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.

Over his career, Austin has tried thirty jury trials to verdict. He served as an adjunct trial advocacy professor at George Washington University Law School from 2007 - 2013. Austin received his B.A. from Yale University and his J.D. from The University of Chicago and he grew up in State College, Pennsylvania.

Angela Calabrese Barton

Michigan State University

Angela Calabrese Barton, PhD, is a professor in science education and teacher education at Michigan State University. She is a leader in the areas of equity and social justice in science education, with a particular emphasis on the urban context. Drawing critically-oriented research methods (multi-sited ethnography, collaborative design-based research, and case study), she investigates youth learning and identity work across setting and over time. She also works closely with teachers to design/adapt curriculum/pedagogy towards incorporating youths’ cultural knowledge and experiences. She also engages in curriculum research and development that links nutrition and science literacies in the upper elementary and middle school classroom. She has designed and taught after school and community-based science/engineering over two decades.

One of her current projects, Get City [Green Energy Technology], is an innovative learning ecology that brings together middle school youth, undergraduate teacher education and engineering students, and university researchers to collaborate in engineering design for sustainable communities. This program won the national MetLife Foundation 2012 After School Innovator Award for Digital Learning in After School and is noted as a 2012 Exemplary Program for University/Community Engagement & Outreach by the Association of Public & Land-Grant Universities. She has been recognized by the American Education Research Association in 2009 with the Division G Award for Research Leading to Transformations of Social Contexts and with the 2010 AERA Informal Education SIG, Outstanding Research Award. Her 2012 book, Empowering Science and Math Education (University of Chicago Press), co-authored with Edna Tan) won the AERA Division B Outstanding Book of the Year award. Some of her publications appear in Educational Researcher, the American Educational Research Journal, the Journal of Research in Science Teaching and the Journal of the Learning Sciences.

Angelicque Blackmon

Innovative Learning Concepts LLC

Dr. Angelicque Blackmon is the President and CEO of Innovative Learning Concepts, LLC in Atlanta, Georgia, a full service premier science and mathematics educational consulting firm. She has been CEO and Director of Research and Evaluation for 11 years responsible for providing research and evaluation services for federally funded STEM education programs. Dr. Blackmon has an extensive background in developing and executing performance, outcome, and impact based evaluations. She has a depth of knowledge of mixed methods research and specializes in qualitative methodologies. Dr. Blackmon earned her B.S. degree in Chemistry and a M.S. degree in Analytical Chemistry from The Georgia Institute of Technology. She received her Ph.D. in Educational Studies with an emphasis in Science Education from Emory University and completed a two-year AERA-IES Postdoctoral Fellowship in Cultural Anthropology. Her work focused on the influence of sociocultural contexts on science teaching and learning. Prior to entering the field of education, Dr. Blackmon worked as a research chemist with Dow Chemical and 3M.

Dr. Blackmon served as the Lead Evaluator of a 15-member team to evaluate a $12.5 million Annenberg Foundation grant to Enterprise Community Partners. She has served as the external evaluator for eight federally funded programs and five private foundation funded programs designed to increase students’ knowledge, skills, interests, attitudes, and efficacy in STEM. Dr. Blackmon’s efforts have been centered on working with leaders in STEM education to secure external funding so that students (K-16), who would not ordinarily receive high quality STEM experiences, could experience the benefit of such programs. She works with program leaders to construct STEM education contexts that build on underrepresented students’ assets. Her work includes collaborating with Directors and Principal Investigators to provide feedback on the performance of their programs, mainly so that students receive the optimal benefit of federally or university allocated resources. Since 2008, her work has allowed 876 underrepresented students to participate in high level STEM activities in after school and summer settings on college campuses.

Terri Boyer

Center for Women and Work, Rutgers University

Dr. Terri Boyer is Assistant Professor and Executive Director of the Center for Women and Work, an innovative leader in research and programs that promote gender equity, a high-skill economy, and reconciliation of work and well-being for all. Her research interests focus on the interactions of gender and experience in education and training programs, and how these affect success and career development, particularly for girls and women’s experiences studying and working in nontraditional roles and fields. She holds a Doctorate in Education from The University of Alabama, a Masters in Higher Education Administration from Alabama, and a Bachelor of Science in Secondary Education from Villanova University, where she also received the Villanova Medallion for Excellence in Education. Her areas of expertise include gender equity in education and career development, including classroom interactions, Title IX, women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), nontraditional careers, sexual harassment, and gendered violence. She has facilitated numerous workshops and presentations both locally and nationally on these topics. Her service positions include seats on several advisory councils, including the NJ Department of Education’s Career and Technical Education Advisory board, and is an elected member of the National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity (NAPE). She is also active in her local Habitat for Humanity chapter, the Millstone Basin Authority.

Before coming to the Center for Women and Work, Dr. Boyer worked at the Education Development Center, Inc. in Newton, MA as Director of Technical Assistance for the U.S Department of Education’s Women’s Educational Equity Act (WEEA) Resource Center, and Research Associate at its Gender and Diversities Institute. She also served as the Director of Pre-College and Undergraduate Programs at the Douglass Project for Rutgers Women in Math, Science and Engineering, an NSF award-winning program at Douglass College. Other positions she has held include Program Coordinator of the Women’s Resource Center, and Career Development Assistant at the University of Alabama.

Katrina Burch

Coretta Scott King High School

Katrina Burch is from Atlanta, Ga and is a senior at Coretta Scott King High School. Katrina will graduate this May and wants to attend the Georgia Institute of Technology. While at Georgia Tech, she plans pursue a degree in Biomedical Engineering, go on to gain a master’s in public health and a doctorate in epidemiology. Currently, Katrina is participant in the Project ENGAGES program at the Georgia Institute of Technology where she studies the effects of antiretroviral manipulation of cathepsin activity causing cardiovascular disease in adherent HIV patients. In addition to this, she participates in her school’s Sister-to-Sister mentoring program that pair seniors with freshmen mentees that are troubled socially and academically. Katrina has been included in journals, co-authored on a research paper, invited to present at an undergraduate conference and awarded first place in Project ENGAGES summer oral competition.

Alejandra Ceja

White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics, U.S. Department of Education

Alejandra Ceja was appointed by the White House on May 6, 2013, to serve the president and secretary of education as the executive director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics.

Ceja will work closely with the Latino community and the President's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics to implement the goals and deliverables under Executive Order 13555, by which President Barack Obama renewed the initiative, and better align the work of the initiative with the Department's cradle-to-career agenda.

Prior to assuming this position, Ceja served as the chief of staff to Under Secretary of Education Martha Kanter. In that role, Ceja was instrumental in managing the under secretary's personnel, budget and associated operations, including the operations of six White House initiatives, to support the president's 2020 goal, what Secretary of Education Duncan calls the nation's "North Star": The US will attain the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020.

Prior to joining the Department, Ceja served as the senior budget and appropriations advisor for the House Committee on Education and Labor, chaired by Congressman George Miller. There, she drafted legislation in support of national service reauthorization—the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act—and worked on policy issues related to child nutrition, English language learners, migrants, Impact Aid and appropriations. From 1999 to 2007, Ceja was a program examiner for the White House Office of Management and Budget, where she helped formulate the federal budget for the Department of Labor and the Corporation for National and Community Service. Ceja has also worked for the Indianapolis Private Industry Council and with Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard in her Washington, D.C., office.

Ceja holds a bachelor's degree in political science from Mount St. Mary's College in Los Angeles, and a master's degree in public administration from Baruch College at the City University of New York. She is a graduate of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute's Public Policy Fellowship, the Presidential Management Fellows program, the National Hispana Leadership Institute and the National Urban Fellows program.

Jan Cuny

National Science Foundation

Jan Cuny received her Ph.D. in Computer and Communication Sciences from the University of Michigan. She spent the next 20 years as a faculty member, first at Purdue University, then at the University of Massachusetts, and finally at the University of Oregon. In 2004, Jan moved to the National Science Foundation (NSF) to establish the Broadening Participation in Computing program, which worked with the broad range of groups underrepresented in computing—women, African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans and indigenous peoples, and persons with disabilities. These efforts were later merged with NSF’s larger, CS Education programs. Most recently, Jan spearheaded NSF’s efforts to building the foundation for a nationwide effort to get inclusive, rigorous, academic computing courses taught by well-prepared teachers into America’s public schools. With this effort—called the CS 10K project because its initial target was 10,000 schools and 10,000 teachers—NSF has funded the development of two new CS courses (including a new AP course), course materials, assessments, models of scalable professional developed and an online community of practice for teachers. NSF is now partnering with private organizations around the country to pilot these courses in hundreds of schools.

For her efforts with underserved populations, Jan is a recipient of a 2006 ACM President’s Award, the 2007 CRA A. Nico Habermann Award, the 2009 Anita Borg Institute’s Woman of Vision Award for Social Impact, and the 2014 Richard A. Tapia Achievement Award for Scientific Scholarship, Civic Science, and Diversifying Computing.

Peter Edelman

Georgetown University Law Center

Peter Edelman is a Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center, where he teaches constitutional law and poverty law and is faculty director of the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality. On the faculty since 1982, he has also served in all three branches of government. During President Clinton’s first term he was Counselor to HHS Secretary Donna Shalala and then Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation.

Professor Edelman has been Associate Dean of the Law Center, Director of the New York State Division for Youth, and Vice President of the University of Massachusetts. He was a Legislative Assistant to Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Issues Director for Senator Edward Kennedy's 1980 Presidential campaign. Prior to working for RFK, he clerked for Supreme Court Justice Arthur J. Goldberg and before that for Judge Henry J. Friendly on the U.S. Court of Appeals. He also served as Special Assistant to U.S. Assistant Attorney General John Douglas, and was a partner in the law firm of Foley & Lardner.

Mr. Edelman’s book,So Rich, So Poor: Why It’s So Hard to End Poverty in America,waspublished by The New Pressin2012. A previous book,Searching for America’s Heart: RFK and the Renewal of Hope, is available in paperback from the Georgetown University Press. His article in the Atlantic Monthly, entitled “The Worst Thing Bill Clinton Has Done,” received the Harry Chapin Media Award.

Mr. Edelman has been a United States-Japan Leadership Program Fellow, was the J. Skelly Wright Memorial Fellow at Yale Law School, and has received numerous honors and awards for his work, including the William J. Brennan, Jr. Award from the D.C. Bar in 2005. He grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School.