Building Student Confidence in STEM – Programs that Promote Student Success 

Lisa Dierker is the Walter Crowell University Professor of Social Sciences and Professor of Psychology at Wesleyan University. With training in both chronic disease epidemiology and developmental psychology, her research has focused on the application of state-of-the-art statistical methods in understanding the development of nicotine dependence and other addictive behaviors. As a teacher, she is deeply committed to creating equity and inclusion within the data analytics economy and is introducing a wide and diverse audience to the skills needed to ask and answer challenging and important questions with data. Through funding from the National Science Foundation, she is disseminating Passion-Driven Statistics, a welcoming, project-based model for teaching data science and applied statistics to traditional and non-traditional college students, and to youth as early as grade 9.

Ashley Ringer McDonald is a Professor of Chemistry at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California. She received her bachelor’s degree from Mississippi College and her Ph.D. in theoretical chemistry from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on using multiscale modeling to study molecular interactions in complex chemical contexts. Prof. McDonald is on the board of directors at the Molecular Sciences Software Institute (the MolSSI) where she serves as the director for education, training, and faculty development. She is the current chair of the American Chemical Society Division of Computers in Chemistry. Prof. McDonald is passionate about making computing a more accessible and integrated part of the STEM curriculum for all students. She is the editor for the book “Teaching Programming across the Chemistry Curriculum”, which was published by the American Chemical Society in 2021.