Team Members

Dr. Madak-Erdogan is Sylvia D. Stroup Scholar of Nutrition and Cancer, Associate Dean of Graduate College, and Associate Director of Cancer Research Education and Training Coordination at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Her lab uses advanced computational analysis of –OMICs data from patient samples and in vivo and in vitro models to understand how hormones and the environment impact disparities associated with metabolic health and cancer outcomes. She has built a strong and diverse laboratory and mentors high school students, undergraduates, graduate students, postdoctoral associates, and early career faculty. Madak-Erdogan teaches courses in Health Disparities, Cancer Metabolism, Basic Toxicology, Diet, Nutrition and Cancer, and Women’s Health. She has received several awards, including the Women in Endocrinology Young Investigator Award from the Endocrine Society, the Mary Swartz Rose Young Investigator Award from the American Society for Nutrition, Michael B. Kastan Award for Research Excellence from American Association of Cancer Research and she was named a Future Research Leader and a Health Disparities Research Institute Scholar by NIH. Dr. Madak-Erdogan is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the Endocrine Society and a member of the Board of Reviewing Editors for Science Magazine.

Emily Roxworthy is an associate dean in the Graduate Division at the University of California, San Diego, and faculty in the Department of Theatre & Dance with affiliations to Ethnic Studies and Critical Gender Studies. In the Graduate Division, her work focuses on the professional development and diversity of UC San Diego’s 7000 graduate and professional students, particularly ensuring that those who are underrepresented in their academic programs find the support they need in terms of outreach, access, recruitment, and retention. She formerly served as UC San Diego’s Provost of Earl Warren College (named after the legendary Civil Rights-era Supreme Court Justice) and Associate Vice Chancellor of Faculty Diversity and Equity. Professor Roxworthy is also an interdisciplinary scholar in the field of Performance Studies, where she has published two books (The Spectacle of Japanese American Trauma: Racial Performativity and World War II [2008] and The Theatrical Professoriate: Contemporary Higher Education and Its Academic Dramas [2020]). She is also an applied artist who wrote and directed a 3D role-playing video game prototype that models life in a Japanese American concentration camp (Drama in the Delta) and is the artistic director of Workplace Interactive Theatre, a company that performs diversity workshops centered on participatory scenarios.

Vincent L. Stephens (he/him) is the Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion in the College of Arts & Sciences at Boston University. Dr. Stephens builds capacity and awareness among faculty through educational engagement rooted in research-based approaches to equitable hiring, pedagogy, and intellectual practices. He is an American Studies scholar who co-edited 2017’s Postracial America? An Interdisciplinary Study, wrote 2019’s Rocking the Closet: How Little Richard, Johnnie Ray, Liberace, and Johnny Mathis Queered Pop Music, and is currently completing a book on contemporary depictions of women on television for Wayne State University Press. His essays on popular culture have also appeared in numerous scholarly journals, edited collections, and encyclopedias. As a DEIA focused administrator he has also published on peer mentoring programs and practices, and high impact educational practices, and presented at conferences hosted by the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity (NCORE), Pennsylvania Association of Liaisons and Offices of Multicultural Affairs (PALOMA), Peer Mentoring Institute (PMI), and the Pennsylvania chapter for the National Association for Multicultural Education (PA-NAME). He completed his Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Maryland College Park, and has held DEI leadership roles at Dickinson College and Bucknell University.

Dr. Anita L. Destefano earned an MS in Dairy Science from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and a PhD in Quantitative Genetics from Cornell University. She completed two years of postdoctoral studies at Boston University before joining the faculty there. Her main research interest is statistical genetics and she focuses on using large scale genomic data to identify genes conferring risk or protection for Alzheimer disease and related measures. She has a long-standing interest in graduate education, having previously served as a co-director of the Biostatistics graduate program for 10 years. Dr. DeStefano also contributed to the NIH funded BU Summer Institute for Biostatistics, a pipeline program to encourage graduate studies in biostatistics, as either a faculty member or co-PI for 18 years. She has served as Graduate Affairs Faculty Fellow for Diversity and Inclusion since 2018. In that role, she works with her co-faculty fellow and the Associate Provost for Graduate Affairs to broaden recruitment, encourage implementation of equitable admissions practices, and create an inclusive environment across all graduate programs at BU. Drs. Posselt and Miller have been providing workshops at BU since 2019 and Dr. DeStefano is excited for new avenues to share information about equitable admissions with her BU colleagues.

Anitra Douglas-McCarthy serves as the Assistant Dean for Access and Recruitment at the Cornell University Graduate School. In her role, she leads the University’s efforts to recruit and enroll scholars to Cornell’s graduate programs, particularly those from backgrounds underrepresented in higher education. She has dedicated her career in higher education to increasing student access, well-being, and achievement and works closely with Cornell’s graduate fields and faculty as well as with prospective students coaching them on applying to graduate programs and ways to improve and promote their credentials for successful admission to their programs of choice.

Senta Georgia is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California. She earned her BS from Stanford University and PhD from UCLA. Her career has focused on how insulin-producing beta cells contribute to pathogenesis of diabetes. Her pre- and post-doctoral studies focused on the role of cell cycle molecules and DNA methylation in beta cell differentiation, expansion, and regeneration. Currently, her lab uses multiple model systems to understand the beta cell differentiation, metabolism, identity, regeneration, and function in the context of good health and disease.

As a product of multiple pipeline programs designed to diversify STEM disciplines, Dr. Georgia is deeply committed to promoting equitable practices to increase representation of students from diverse backgrounds in the biosciences. She is the Director of Admissions for the Program in Biomedical and Biological Sciences, the first-year umbrella program for Ph.D students at the Keck School of Medicine at USC. Additionally, she is the Director of the USC COMPASS program, which is a 2 year research intensive program to prepare students from underrepresented backgrounds for careers in regenerative medicine.

Assistant Dean for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Graduate College Director of the Illinois Sloan University Center for Exemplary Mentoring University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Lisa R. Abston, Ph.D., is the inaugural Assistant Dean for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in the Graduate College at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. In this role, Dr. Abston provides strategic vision