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Ebony McGee, Ph.D. - Fielding Graduate University. Santa Barbara, CA, US

Ebony McGee, Ph.D.

Faculty Fellow | Fielding Graduate University

Santa Barbara, CA, UNITED STATES

Biography

Ebony McGee, Ph.D.

As a professor of diversity and STEM education at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College, Dr. Ebony McGee investigates what it means to be racially marginalized while minoritized in the context of learning and achieving in STEM higher education and the STEM professions. Dr. McGee studies the racialized experiences and racial stereotypes that adversely affect the education and career trajectories of underrepresented groups of color. This involves exploring the social, material, and health costs of academic achievement and problematizing traditional forms of success in higher education, with an unapologetic focus on Black folk in these places and spaces. Her National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER grant investigates how marginalization undercuts success in STEM through psychological stress, interrupted STEM career trajectories, impostor phenomenon, and other debilitating race-related trauma for Asian, Black, Indigenous, and Latinx doctoral students.

Education is Dr. McGee’s second career; She left a career in electrical engineering to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics education from the University of Illinois at Chicago, a Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Chicago, and an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship at Northwestern University. With funding from seven NSF grants, Dr. McGee co-founded the Explorations in Diversifying Engineering Faculty Initiative or EDEFI (pronounced “edify”). She also co-founded the Institute in Critical Quantitative and Mixed Methodologies Training for Underrepresented Scholars (ICQCM), which aims to be a go-to resource for the development of quantitative and mixed-methods skillsets that challenge simplistic quantifications of race and marginalization. ICQCM receives support from the NSF, The Spencer Foundation, and the W. T. Grant Foundation.

Dr. McGee’s first solo-authored book is entitled Black, Brown, Bruised: How Racialized STEM Education Stifles Innovation: https://www.hepg.org/hep-home/books/black,-brown,-bruised#

Furthermore, Dr. McGee’s research has been featured in prominent media outlets, including The Atlantic, Diverse Issues in Higher Education, Nature Human Behaviour, Nature Reviews Cancer, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Higher Education Today, NPR’s Codeswitch, The Hechinger Report, Christian Science Monitor, Huffington Post, US News & World Report, Inside Higher Education, Tennessean, Washington Monthly, and The UK Voice Online.