Mays Imad (Photo credit: Imad)

NEW LONDON — A University of Connecticut biology professor leads a team of 10 educators and students to find ways to address the underrepresentation of Black, Hispanic and Indigenous students in science, technology, math and engineering education. I’m exploring. A grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

According to a 2021 report from the Pew Research Center, blacks earned 7% of STEM bachelor’s degrees in 2018, but make up about 13% of the U.S. population, with Hispanic workers making up the largest share of the STEM workforce. 8%, but not compared to 17% of the total workforce. That’s despite research showing that black and Latinx students enroll in her STEM programs at the same rate as white students.

Professor Mays Imad said diversity in STEM is important. Crisis, pandemic, poverty.

Imad emphasized that the grant is to prevent gaps by addressing its roots rather than another diversity, equity and inclusion program looking at what to do about the program.

She plans to work with Connecticut colleges and other parts of the country, including STEM faculty, higher education leaders, students, and others with experience in teaching, administration, counseling, policy, and community advocacy.

They will evaluate DEI’s initiatives in STEM and consider steps teachers and organizations can take to address the aftermath of historic oppression, the university said in a news article. Imad addresses this from a mental health and wellbeing perspective.

A neuroscientist by training, Imad was born in Iraq and grew up there until the age of 14. She is doing her PhD and postdoc work while losing people to the war in her home country, she said. Even the ability to feel. ”

“Learning isn’t just an intellectual endeavor. It’s social, it’s emotional,” she said, adding that without a sense of community, people can’t learn in a meaningful way.

Imad has taught for nearly 15 years at Pima Community College in Arizona and is currently in his second year at Connecticut College where he teaches biofeedback, autonomic nervous system regulation, and physiology courses. Imad has focused his research on the role of stress and self-regulation in learning.

“I think it’s intuitive to me that the work of diversity and equity intersects with the work of happiness and trauma and resilience,” she said. If a student from a racial group previously excluded from the school is admitted to these institutions today, what impact does that past have on their sense of community and trust?

Imad said it was a misconception that the kind of work she does is trying to level the playing field by making things easier for students. is.

“I play a role in continuing to hurt my students if I lower my standards and let them graduate with a degree and then they don’t go out into the world and do well,” she said. “If I lower academic standards, I am making the assumption that I believe students are not capable of being academically challenged.”

e.moser@theday.com