Dear Graduate Students, That time is coming when you will have to defend your dissertation proposal to your committee, and they will decide if you are ready to move to the next step to prepare your dissertation research as a doctoral “candidate.” That transition from “student” to “candidate” […]
Earlier in the month, I had an opportunity to give a plenary talk for the IEEE Summer School on Women in Technology – Veracruz, Mexico. I spoke about the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, and led the audience through an exercise that helped them to build stronger connections to […]
This past academic year, I had the chance to join University System of Maryland colleague Associate Vice Chancellor Dr. Nancy Shapiro in a discussion about institutional change. The University of Buffalo’s Women in STEM Cooperative invited us to be guest speakers on their webinar, “Perspectives on Institutional Change.” I […]
“Jedi Master PyroNet” – That’s what my husband called me … a mashup of Star Wars and a comic book character who helps people to realize their dreams, become change agents, and proverbially “set the world on fire!” That was what he saw when I was dressed in […]
It was a Sunday afternoon in New York … I was in town for a board meeting for the Sloan Foundation’s Mentoring Network, and I decided to go for a walk. As I passed stores throughout the streets, I passed a Michael’s craft store and decided to go […]
Last week, I had the wonderful opportunity to give remarks at the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women CSW 2018 Side Event, “Empowering Rural Women in Engineering Fields” as part of the 62nd CSW. The panel was held on March 21, 2018, a very snowy Wednesday, at the United […]
I have been working at UMBC for many years, and throughout that time, people have known about our research, excellent STEM programs, chess championships and more. Now, the nation is learning more about us because of UMBC’s March Madness bracket-busting win over UVA. Congratulations to the coach, the […]
We were teenagers from various areas of the country, e.g., Chicago, North Carolina, Chicago, New Jersey, Ohio, and we met at Howard University — excited to study engineering. We studied together, had fun together, and eventually earned PhDs from Virginia Tech, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, UC Berkeley, and Texas […]
At the end of 2017, I had the opportunity to visit colleagues in Peru in preparation for our 2018 Latin and Caribbean Consortium of Engineering Institutions (LACCEI) conference. In 2018, I will again lead the Women in STEM forum with the Organization of American States, and will have […]
Today, my husband and I celebrate 25 years of marriage! We got married on Dec. 26 because we were in school at the time, and it was the only time when we had a break from class, and when our friends could also come to the wedding. Plus, […]
My favorite meal of the day is breakfast, so it is ironic (or rather a blessing) that women from around the world have encouraged me and my work over breakfast. Today, I reflect on a day in 2015 when I was preparing for a session in Italy. I […]
Yesterday, I had a chance to join colleague and friend Christina White for a discussion on the intersections between the global grand challenges (National Academy of Engineering) and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. I will have other posts on this topic in the near future, […]
I’ve just arrived in Malaysia after spending the night in Shanghai to prepare to join my colleagues to lead a special session on the National Academy of Engineering’s Grand Challenges and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: http://www.weef2017.org/programme-speaker.php This is an honor that I owe to a great […]
As I give talks about mentoring and equity in STEM, I am reminded of a comment that I made a few weeks ago during a moderated panel at the National Press Club. I had been invited to speak at the Million Women Mentors Summit, and one of the […]
The past few weeks have been an adventure, but it has been wonderful to be able to give talks on STEM diversity, inclusion, and mentoring for SACNAS 2017 (GEM GRAD Lab) in Salt Lake City, NOBCChE 2017 (GEM GRAD Lab) in Minneapolis, SREB’s 2017 Compact for Faculty Diversity/Institute for Teaching […]
I still don’t know how many of my friends are doing in Puerto Rico. Being separated from general social media here in China has me continuing to wonder if they are ok. My blog posts can be seen on Twitter, but I can’t access it directly (I don’t […]
When I first received an invitation to come to China to be part of a UNESCO team for an engineering report, I thought, “Wow, what a tremendous honor.” As the days have gone on here in China, I am realizing that it is a bigger honor than I […]
Settling into a new country is always interesting, and coming to Beijing for the first time is an exciting experience. I am here with a team from UNESCO and leaders of engineering organizations to discuss a UNESCO initiative and report on engineering around the world. I have yet […]
Tonight I had the opportunity to guest tweet for the National GEM Consortium’s Leadership Awards Gala in NYC. The night was filled with great stories of GEM Fellows who have achieved excellence in STEM, and wonderful organizations that have supported GEM, e.g., Georgia Tech, Adobe, Intel, and Amazon, […]
Last week, I had the honor of leading an Organization of American States’ session on “Women in STEM” at an international conference, and giving a bilingual presentation to an assembly of delegates from more than 30 countries, in an election for Vice President of Initiatives for the Latin […]
I’m taking an opportunity to thank colleagues at MIT for inviting me to speak to MSRP (MIT Summer Research Program) students for the 11th year in a row. Over the years, I have had the wonderful and unique privilege to have colleagues among the faculty and administration. As […]
Next week, our PROMISE AGEP and UMBC Graduate School will have its annual summer Dissertation House session. My colleagues Wendy Carter-Veale, Janet Rutledge, and I founded The Dissertation House to serve and coach students through the process of finishing that doctoral dissertation. One of the biggest obstacles that […]
Thank you to the International Federation of Engineering Education Societies (IFEES) for inviting me to be a speaker for this morning’s webinar on Global Engagement in Diversity. Our leaders and panelists were Dr. Christina White, Dr. David Delaine, and Dr. Stephanie Farrell. Here are a few of the […]
As Father’s Day approaches, and I reflect on a talk that I gave on Tuesday in Denver on publicly acknowledging the role of family and community support on the STEM journey, I honor my father, (the late) George C. Garrison Jr., who is identified below in the family […]
On May 5, 2017, I had the opportunity to provide remarks on effective mentoring for the Fellowship Roundtable at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. By request of the organizers, I am providing the slides from the talk here. The PROMISE Program includes all of […]
“I am a proud engineer, and I appreciate UMBC for providing the foundational support for me to be recognized as one of the rising global leaders who is given a voice and space to promote STEM equity and access,” she said. UMBC has strongly my efforts and interests, […]
In April, I had the opportunity to give a talk at the ABET Symposium titled, “A More Worldly Graduate: How to Engage Your Students Globally.” During that talk, I discussed ways to provide students with a global perspective, both within and outside of the US. I also strongly […]
Today I had the honor of speaking at the United Nations for a session on women in engineering and empowerment for a UNESCO-sponsored side event of the Committee on the Status of Women. This event comes on the same day that I received notification that I will be […]
When a confirmation hearing takes a sudden turn and gives us historical pause, we need to stop, listen, think, reflect, and determine how to move forward. For this post, I will use the up-to-the-minute tweets and articles that are providing the narrative for Senator Elizabeth Warren’s silencing during […]
I’m in San Diego, California, and after my meetings ended, I had a chance to leave the building and get some fresh air at the mall in Horton Plaza, the local open air, multi-story mall near my meeting site. I was excited to see the mall because it […]
Steve Kolowich from The Chronicle of Higher Education wrote an interesting story yesterday titled, Prof. Barack Obama Needs a New Job, So We Sent Around His Academic Résumé . I found it interesting because I regularly review CVs for my students and postdocs who are seeking faculty positions. This article […]
Being at the White House and contributing to President Obama’s initiatives in STEM such as the “My Brother’s Keeper STEM+” and STEM Inclusion Conference in 2016 have been among the highlights of my career. I sincerely thank Dr. Marvin Carr and Dr. Quincy Brown for providing the opportunities […]
It was a pleasure to have as a New Year’s gift the surprise of being included in the list of 200 for Medium.com’s “A List of 200 Women of Color on Twitter.” It’s even more special to be listed in the faculty category. Thank you @NikkyMill @Medium for […]
I’ve just returned from Korea and have stepped into an America that has masks removed. As an advocate for diversity and inclusion though both personal and professional work, I need to address some issues that speak to our current state of affairs. I have made the decision to […]
As we continue to do our work here in Korea on what is now Nov. 9 here in Seoul, I want to thank the Airbus Group for their investment in diversity. Thank you Airbus! Thank you for your investment. Congratulations to the 2016 finalists! Thank you @Airbus @AirbusGroup […]
This morning in Seoul, Korea, I chaired the “Inclusive Engagement – Engineering for All” Special Session for the 2016 World Engineering Education Forum & Global Engineering Deans Council. The “Challenge Questions” are here, and you can still participate by posting your thoughts and responses to Q1, Q2, Q3, […]
This morning in Seoul, I had the honor of participating on an invited inter-generational panel to discuss “The role of engineering education in the quest for smart societies.” I discussed the importance of including voices from people from all groups, and valuing different perspectives. The key that one […]
I posted the following to my social media pages last night: Thank you ABET for the 2016 Claire L. Felbinger Award for Diversity. Thank you to all of the staff, students, faculty, and administrators at UMBC, University System of Maryland, and all of PROMISE: Maryland’s AGEP. Thank you […]
It was a pleasure to be with participants from PROMISE at the White House. This was Day 2 at the White House. The event was The White House Conference on Inclusive STEM Education for Youth of Color. One of my grad student fellows, Adegboyega Akinsiku, was a speaker […]
As I share my article in Computing Research News, Expanding the Pipeline: PROMISE Brings a New Phase of #ThinkBigDiversity to Maryland Grad Students, I also celebrate our PROMISE alums and mentees. Representing mentees in this photo are two of our PROMISE alums, Dr. Frances Carter-Johnson (now at the National […]
There it was, another sign that I hadn’t gotten over it. Last week, a colleague sent me an article via Facebook titled, CNN Sexual harassment in STEM: ‘It’s tragic for society’, and I could barely respond. He asked if I had seen the article, and my response was short: I’m just reading […]
This is one of those days when I have limited words, and the only feelings that I have to express the knowledge of more unarmed men being killed were these that I posted on Facebook this morning. In memory of Terence Crutcher, and 13-year old Tyre King, and for all […]
Born during of the civil rights movement, the University of Maryland Baltimore County celebrated its 50th birthday this weekend, and its Founders Day this afternoon. I’ve worked at several universities in various capacities: Northwestern, the University of Wisconsin, the University of College Park, and UMBC. Most of these […]
It is an honor and a privilege to be named the 2016 winner of the Claire Felbinger Award for Diversity from ABET. Thank you to all who nominated me, and thank you for finding value in my work. I also thank all of the people who help me […]
I’ll miss seeing my students in Puerto Rico at their research conference next month because the Ana G. Méndez University System (AGMUS) Research Symposium conflicts with some of our events in Maryland. However, as people have been asking me about resources that can be shared with students in both […]
Today, my social media pages woke up to a beautiful feature by Vanguard STEM, an organization dedicated to promoting and applauding women in STEM. I am honored to be among their honorees! Story: http://vanguardstem.com/wcwinstem-renetta-g-tull-phd/ The story gave an opportunity to reflect on the events of this past month, […]
My co-authors and I are thrilled that our paper on the Dissertation House has finally been published! After 10 years of optimizing the program and gathering data, we have a full, published paper to share with you about the Dissertation House model. As a founder of the Dissertation […]
This past week, our contingent from the University System of Maryland participated in international meetings that were part of the Latin and Caribbean Consortium of Engineering Institutions in Costa Rica. Our full agenda with the pre-conference activities, student forum, and the blog posts that accompanied the event can […]
In the wake of #BlackLivesMatter issues, deaths of unarmed Black men, confusion, and hurt, I called my talk at UMBC “Why Your Life Matters: Reflections from a STEM Perspective.” The talk was given on Saturday, July 9, 2016 in Lecture Hall 2 of the Chemistry Building (MEYR 030), […]
My husband, Dr. Damon Tull, and I are pleased to announce that our paper with co-authors Shawnisha Hester and physicist Dr. Anthony Johnson, Dark Matters: Metaphorical Black Holes that Affect Ethnic Underrepresentation in Engineering, is now available to the public. It can be downloaded in its entirety from ResearchGate, here. […]
When I went to Taiwan for the Pacific Sciences Congress, I was able to share “The Jessica Effect” as part of a session that was sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). I discussed several issues related to the importance of including and supporting women […]
Thank you to Sci Chic/Medium.com for naming me as one of the 35 “Women STEM on Social Media Stars,” (as of July 1, 2016), and thank you to Dr. Jenna Carpenter, President of WEPAN (Women in Engineering ProActive Network) and Founding Dean of Engineering at Campbell University, for […]
DEADLINE EXTENDED to 5 Sept. 2016! Dear Friends, We are just returning from the 123rd Annual Conference of the American Society for Engineering Education in New Orleans, and the information below was sent this morning, 30 June, 8:15 AM EST, from the GEDC Team: The application deadline for […]
I’m heading to Bolivia this fall, and I thank ETN Workshops for their invitation to talk about women in STEM, and women in Latin America. It will be my pleasure to present “The Jessica Effect” in La Paz in September 2016, to bring attention to the need to […]
While waiting for a flight to leave Japan and go to Taiwan, I wanted to recap some of my comments from the “Multi-disciplinary Panel Discussion on Diversity in STEM,” held at Vanderbilt University, June 8, 2016, as part of the http://www.BlackengineeringPhD.org project by Dr. Ebony McGee and Dr. […]
Originally posted on PROMISE: Maryland's AGEP 2003-2018:
The White House has listed the National Science Foundation’s PROMISE AGEP for Maryland, along with the University System of Maryland’s Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation program (USM LSAMP), among organizations in the U.S. that have a commitment to the new MBK…
During the Gender Summit in Mexico, GS8, the audience was continually reminded to remember to consider women and their full lives. It was perhaps fitting that my talk on “The Jessica Effect” was one of the last talks of the conference, bringing together many of the themes of the […]
I have been out of town and was able to arrive home in time to get to a late night zumba class. My gym made me feel good by welcoming me back and joking about my love of zumba, then encouraging me to put “training for zumba instructor” […]
Our team will have two presentations at the Understanding Interventions Conference in Philadelphia this weekend. Please join us! Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, Market Street http://understanding-interventions.org/2016-conference/ Saturday, February 27, 2016 1. Models for multi-institutional alliances: The PROMISE AGEP 10:30 AM – 12 noon Franklin Hall 13 2) #Thinkbigdiversity – A […]
Dear Emerging Scholars, My colleague, Dr. Autumn Reed, and I are presenting a session at the “Women of Color in the Academy: What’s Next?” conference in Delaware, April 29 – May 1, 2016, sponsored by the National Science Foundation’s ADVANCE program in Delaware. We were asked to give an […]
The scene is the “after-discussion” that followed the 2016 PROMISE Research Symposium. We were a group of women – black and hispanic, part of the STEM enterprise. Among us were tiers of mentors and mentees of different levels. We were sharing … there were questions, and answers. We […]
I had a wonderful time in India, and am now in Costa Rica. It is a pleasure to be able to share discussions of diversity in engineering and other STEM fields around the world. Here are some additional photos from the women in engineering and diversity session at […]
On this day when we celebrate Martin Luther King’s birthday and legacy in the United States, I reflect on the blessing that I have to discuss diversity around the world. In discussing diversity in different places, I have a chance to learn about other cultures, and have appreciated […]
We’re in a new year. 2016. As my pastor said in his January message, it is a new day, and you are blessed with grace-filled moments. In 2015 and even in parts of the very new 2016, I know that some have been flirting with self-doubt, and contemplating an […]
Many thanks to all who continue to support my STEM equity and access efforts, and thanks to all who continue to invite me to participate in important conversations about STEM diversity. Following the presentation and discussions at the Global Engineering Deans Council event in Australia, conversations continued, and additional […]
Renetta Garrison Tull - Living Life Online 