Dr. Esther Isabelle Wilder is a professor of sociology at Lehman College, The City University of New York (CUNY), and a

faculty member at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her research focuses on enhancing STEM education, particularly strategies to improve students’ quantitative literacy (QL) skills. She is dedicated to promoting best practices in STEM education, with an emphasis on developing critical thinking and quantitative reasoning abilities, especially at minority-serving institutions. In addition to her work in STEM, Dr. Wilder examines the intersection of biomedical and social factors in shaping the experience of disability and explores how race/ethnicity and religion influence demographic and economic outcomes. She also studies trends in scholarly publishing, artificial intelligence—including ChatGPT—and access to literature in fields such as demography and gerontology.

Dr. Wilder is the author of Wheeling and Dealing: Living with Spinal Cord Injury (Vanderbilt University Press) and coauthor (with W.H. Walters) of Voices from the Heartland: The Needs and Rights of Individuals with Disabilities (Brookline Books). Her work has been published in journals such as Scientific Reports, The Sociological Quarterly, The American Sociologist, Sociological Perspectives, Social Science Research, Scientometrics, Studies in Contemporary Jewry, Milbank Quarterly, and Teaching Sociology. Dr. Wilder has led several NSF-funded initiatives aimed at improving quantitative reasoning skills, especially among underrepresented groups. She has worked on fostering best practices in STEM education, focusing on engaging students in hands-on research and helping them to develop critical thinking skills for academic and professional success.