Seminar Series | Centering Blackness: Decolonizing Values in Graduate Engineering Education

The last few years of living in pandemic times has forced many to reprioritize their values amidst their academic aspirations and/or pursuits. This session will stimulate an interactive dialogue addressing the need to disrupt the centering of Eurocentric ways of doing, knowing, being, and most relevant to this work, valuing in engineering education, and specifically, at the graduate level. Data from a national research project investigating the lived experiences of Black graduate students in engineering will demonstrate centering Blackness, through the adoption of Black Cultural Ethos and collectivistic values, as a necessary step in actualizing AntiraCisT engineering environments.

Biography

Brooke C. Coley, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in Engineering at the Polytechnic School of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University. She is Founding Executive Director of the Center for Research Advancing Racial Equity, Justice and Sociotechnical Innovation Centered in Engineering (RARE JUSTICE), a nexus of research and development serving to model what antiracism and equity in action look like across scholarship, education, workforce development, dissemination, and impact; and Principal Investigator of the Shifting Perceptions, Attitudes and Cultures in Engineering (SPACE) Lab, which aspires to elevate the experiences of marginalized populations, dismantle systemic injustices, and transform the way inclusion is cultivated in engineering. Her active NSF-supported research focuses on three specific areas: the role of identity-related professional organizations in engineering student success (NSF# 1828659), understanding the dynamics between graduate student needs, faculty abilities and the impact on mental health and career trajectory decisions (NSF# 2100408) and creating pathways to engineering education research (NSF# 2051156). Dr. Coley’s video, The Extremophiles, a dissemination of her NSF PROSE Study was selected as a 2022 STEM For All Showcase Award Winner. Additionally, Dr. Coley received the 2021 Diversity and Inclusion Award from the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering for her commitment to creating and fostering a diverse and inclusive environment. She holds a BS degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Maryland Baltimore County where she became a Meyerhoff Scholar and a PhD in Bioengineering with a concentration in Biomechanics from the University of Pittsburgh. Prior to joining the Polytechnic School, Dr. Coley completed postdoctoral training at ASU in Engineering Education. She also served as the Associate Director for the Center for Diversity in Engineering at the University of Virginia and as an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the National Science Foundation (NSF) for several years.