Industry Roadtrip: Non-Profits

Our panelists will be Dr. Arielle Baker and Dr. Christopher Williams – scroll down to read their bios. Mary Omotoso will be the moderator for this session.

Arielle Baker (they/them) is a Program Officer with the Committee on Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine (CWSEM) and the Assistant Director of the Action Collaborative on Preventing Sexual Harassment in Higher Education at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Coming to the National Academies by way of a Christine Mirzayan Science & Technology Policy Fellowship, Dr. Baker currently supports projects related to addressing and preventing sexual harassment in higher education. Dr. Baker holds bachelors degrees with honors in Neuroscience and in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Dartmouth College. Their dissertation work used electrophysiological techniques to examine the connectivity and modulation of cortical circuitry.

Christopher Williams is the STEM Education Specialist at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC. He shares the stories of African  American achievement in STEM by developing and delivering in-person and virtual STEM content for K-12 educators, students and visitors of all ages. The STEM educator programs provide fellowship experiences and professional development workshops designed to empower K-12 educators to confidently and accurately lead their students through STEM principles and practices, while using narratives grounded in African American achievement. Student and family programs blend African American history with hands-on, interactive activities traditionally associated with science centers and makerspaces allowing visitors multiple entry points to fully engage with, question, and appreciate African American history and STEM. Prior to being a museum educator, he was a 2016-2018 AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow placed at the National Science Foundation. Chris was also a postdoctoral molecular biology and genetics researcher at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. He received his B.S. in Biology from Frostburg State University in 2006 and earned his Ph.D. in the Department of Biology at Georgetown University in 2012.