Overview: Discover insights into the historical and current context of structural racism in the United States, examining its impact on education and representation in STEMM fields during our engaging panel session titled "Empowering Change: Leadership Strategies for Transforming DEI Systems." Delve into the consequences of redlining, funding disparities, historical graduation rates, and persistent segregation, and explore the vital role played by Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) in addressing these disparities. Uncover data on representation by race and ethnicity in U.S. STEMM higher education and the effects of racial bias, emphasizing the importance of high-status relationships, mentorship, and the role of standardized tests in academic admissions processes. Gain valuable insights and strategies for advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEMM and beyond.
Date: Tuesday, November 21, 2023, at 12noon EST
Moderator: Dr. Radhika Kulkarni
Dr. Radhika Kulkarni is an advanced analytics professional, active in the area of operations research, artificial intelligence and machine learning. She retired after 35 years of leading various areas of analytics R&D at SAS Institute, Inc. For the last 10 years of her career, Kulkarni was the Vice President of Advanced Analytics R&D, overseeing software development in many analytical areas including statistics, operations research, econometrics, forecasting, and data mining.
Panel:
David Hunt, a Vice President at Oliver Wyman, focuses on transportation policy, operations, and strategic planning. He has worked with clients on six continents and across all transportation modes. Projects include developing market share models predicting modal shifts under industry changes, developing predictive maintenance programs using machine learning, and implementing large-scale optimization models for equipment repositioning. Dave is a long-time member of INFORMS, serving on the Board of Directors and was a founder of Pro Bono Analytics. He earned a BS from West Virginia University and an MSE from Princeton University.
Dr. Eric Brey, joined UTSA in 2017 as professor and department chair after working for 13 years at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Brey received his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Rice University and was a NIH post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Surgery at Loyola University Medical Center. In addition to his teaching and administrative roles, Brey is co-director of the UTSA Institute for Regenerative Medicine and directs research focused on the fields of tissue engineering, regenerative medicine and biomaterials.
Dr. Janis Terpenny is a program director in the CMMI Division of NSF, on loan from George Mason University where she is professor of Systems Engineering and Operations Research (SEOR) and Mechanical Engineering (ME). Her research focuses on smart integrated systems and processes for design and manufacturing and on design education. Previously, she served as dean of Engineering at the University of Tennessee, department head of IME at Penn State and of IMSE at Iowa State. She is a SVP on the board of trustees of IISE and governor elect for the ASME board of governors.