Advancing the Mental Health and Wellness of Latinx/e STEM Faculty
Panelists will share ways that we can advance the wellness of Latinx/e faculty within STEM.
Dr. Idalis Villanueva Alarcón
Dr. Idalis Villanueva Alarcón is an Associate Chair for Research & Graduate Studies and a tenured Associate Professor of Engineering Education in the University of Florida. In 2019, she received the White House Office of Science, Technology, and Policy’s Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) award for her 2017 National Science Foundation CAREER project on hidden curriculum in engineering. Her work has propelled her to be a prominent, national thought leader in diversifying the engineering education and workforce. She has a B.S. degree is in Chemical Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez and a M.S. and Ph.D. degree in Chemical and Biological Engineering from the University of Colorado-Boulder. Also, she completed her postdoctoral fellowship from the National Institutes of Health in Analytical Cell Biology in Bethesda, Maryland and worked as a lecturer for 2 years before transitioning to a tenure-track in engineering education.
Dr. Adán Colón-Carmona
Dr. Adán Colón-Carmona is a Professor of Biology at UMass Boston and has served the University in various capacities, including chair of university-wide committees, faculty advisor to educational programs, and principal investigator on research, training, and outreach programs. He is co-Director the NIH-funded Initiative for Maximizing Student Development (IMSD), PI-lead of the Research Education Core of the UMass Boston-Dana Farber/Harvard Cancer Center Partnership to Advance Health Equity, and Director of the Youth Wellness Corps for Health Equity Program. Nationally, he serves on the Board of Directors for the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS). Dr. Colón-Carmona has 20+ years of teaching and mentoring experience, including the mentoring of undergraduates, postbaccs, graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and early-stage investigators. His research projects include cell cycle regulation and stress cell signaling in plants, STEM education, health disparities, equity in higher ed, and environmental social justice
Dr. Matilde
Sánchez-Peña
Dr. Matilde Sánchez-Peña is an assistant professor of Engineering Education at the University at Buffalo – SUNY where she leads the Diversity Assessment Research in Engineering to Catalyze the Advancement of Respect and Equity (DAREtoCARE) Lab. Her research focuses on developing cultures of care and well-being in engineering education spaces, assessing gains in institutional efforts to advance equity and inclusion, and using data science for training socially responsible engineers.