My current projects include investigating engineering-students’ motivation, emotion, and self-regulation within our FAMU/FSU College of Engineering. This research explores ways that students’ motivation, beliefs, and self-regulation impact their engineering identity-development, in reference to their ethnic identity. I’m particularly interested in African-American female and male engineering students’ experiences, and retention, within the FAMU/FSU College of Engineering.

One specific focus is interviewing African-American women engineering students. We are using Critical Race Theory (CRT, Stovall, 2006) to explore issues of gender and race, “to identify the structures by which we understand the forces that work in opposition to the social justice” (pg. 245). CRT has provided a lens to explore issues of power with respect to ethnicity. Because engineering has been dominated by males, CRT is a useful tool to understand power-dynamics within engineering education. Our current analysis reveal that African-American female students experience wide-spread differential treatment, especially compared to their white male counterparts. For example, their abilities are questioned by faculty, they are left-out of important student group-meetings, and their efforts are sabotaged. Thus, these bright, capable women must be vigilant to ensure their needs are met.

Aligned with the focus of understanding African-American students’ experiences within engineering education, I am also a co-PI for an IES grant (PURPOSE) that targets increasing the participation of underrepresented students in educational research. The goal of our PURPOSE (Promoting University Research Partnership Opportunities for Social Justice in Education) training-program is to provide pathways to doctoral preparation in educational research for groups traditionally underrepresented in graduate education and in the education sciences. PURPOSE, a joint program of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU) and Florida State University (FSU), focuses on providing four Cohorts of Fellows with year-long experiences that include a Research Apprenticeship, a biweekly Proseminar, and a research-related service-learning opportunity.