Propelling Change in Diversity Equity & Inclusion – Reflections on Efforts in Undergraduate STEM Education

Before joining UC Davis in 2019, Dr. Tull was Associate Vice Provost for Strategic Initiatives at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), and Professor of the Practice in UMBC’s College of Engineering and IT (COEIT). Within COEIT, she served as part of the “Engagement” team, and pursues research in humanitarian engineering. Tull is Founding Director and Co-PI for the 12-institution National Science Foundation University System of Maryland’s (USM) PROMISE AGEP, and Co-Director/Co-PI for the NSF USM’s Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP). In addition to roles at UMBC and roles with grants, she also served the University System of Maryland as Special Assistant to the Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Student Affairs, and was the system’s Director of Graduate & Professional Pipeline Development. In 2017, Dr. Tull was appointed to serve as Chair for the University System of Maryland’s Health Care Workforce Diversity subgroup. Dr. Tull has engineering and science degrees from Howard University and Northwestern University.

Lilian M. Martinez currently serves as the C.E.O. and Executive Director of Out in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (oSTEM), Inc. Lilian has a background in Chemical Engineering that took a sharp turn into non-profits. Lilian's expertise is in Event Planning, Logistics, and Fundraising for 501(c)(3) entities.

Samantha is a PhD candidate in Materials Chemistry at the University of California Los Angeles. She is co-founder of BlackInChem, an organization which works to highlight and increase the visibility of Black chemists. She is a National Science Foundation Graduate Research fellow and David L. Boren fellow.

In February 2019, Dana began her time at NASA HQ on a detail that led to a permanent transfer. She works in the Science Engagement & Partnerships Division of the Science Mission Directorate (SMD). During her detail, she built an internal toolkit (website) on the Exploration of Life beyond Earth and led a team of astrobiologists to develop a tool to help NASA better prepare the public for an eventual announcement of finding life. In 2020, she began managing the day-to-day activities for the science.nasa.gov website and in 2021, she was added to the team leading the SMD Web Modernization effort. Prior to HQ, Dana worked the majority of her NASA career at the Ames Research Center. Her last organization was the Flight Systems Implementation Branch, where she was the International Space Station (ISS) Payload Logistics Lead for 3 years, leading the logistics team in providing services to all of the bioscience payloads sent up to ISS. For 6 years prior, she worked in the Human Research Program as the programmatic Risk Manager, Data Accessibility Lead, and in Process and Information Management. Her first role at Ames was as an environmental compliance specialist, managing the Center’s largest programs in air quality, industrial wastewater discharge, and hazardous material storage. She held this role for 8-1/2 years. Dana transferred to Ames after working a short 1-1/2 years at the Goddard Space Flight Center, but her NASA career began at the Kennedy Space Center as a flight systems safety engineer, where she remained for almost 3 years. Dana earned a Master’s Certificate in Rehabilitation Engineering and Technology at San Francisco State University and before that, a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from California State University, Long Beach.