Dr. Katey Shirey’s work stems from her combined interests in science, art, and education. Dr. Shirey graduated from the University of Virginia with bachelor’s degrees in physics and sculpture. She received her master’s in secondary science education, also from Virginia, and taught Physics at Washington-Liberty High School in Arlington, VA. Dr. Shirey received her PhD in 2017 from the University of Maryland in Curriculum and Instruction with a focus on teacher challenges and productive resources for integrating engineering design into high-school physics. Through her work as a Knowles Teacher Initiative Senior Fellow and founder of eduKatey, Dr. Shirey helps high-school science and math teachers leverage engineering-design instruction for content learning and increased student problem-solving agency.

Karin Jensen, Ph.D. is a Teaching Assistant Professor in bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  Her research interests include student mental health and wellness, engineering student career pathways, and engagement of engineering faculty in engineering education research. She was awarded a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation for her research on undergraduate mental health in engineering programs. Before joining UIUC she completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Sanofi Oncology in Cambridge, MA.  She earned a bachelor’s degree in biological engineering from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the University of Virginia.

Samara is an undergraduate studying neuroscience at Rice University in Houston, TX. She works as a research assistant for Dr. Yvette E. Pearson in the George R. Brown School of Engineering. Her primary research focus is the advancement of diversity, equity, and inclusion in engineering education.

Dr. Canek Phillips is a Research Scientist at in the George R. Brown School of Engineering at Rice University where his research interests touch broadly on efforts to promote greater equity for underrepresented groups in engineering. Canek earned his PhD from the Purdue School of Engineering Education in 2016 and worked as a graduate research assistant in Dr. Alice Pawley’s Feminist Research in Engineering Education Lab. Canek was brought on at Rice originally as a postdoctoral research fellow in 2017 on an NSF-funded study that investigates the efficacy of an audio-based method of learning mathematics where he now serves as Co-PI. In 2019, he began working as Co-PI on another NSF-funded study to reduce barriers in the hiring of underrepresented racial minority faculty in data science and data engineering fields.