Murray State Advance

Dr. Maeve McCarthy, Assistant Dean and Professor of Mathematics and Statistics, will serve as the Principal Investigator. She will lead the program, supervise the program coordinator and administrative assistant, and conduct some of the policy reviews. As the former Executive Director of the Association for Women in Mathematics, she is passionate about gender issues in STEM. Through her work as the former Chair of the MSU Insurance and Benefits Committee and PI of the MSU Catalyst grant, she has strong relationships with the MSU administration.

Dr. Michael Bordieri, Associate Professor of Psychology and co-PI, has specialized training in research design and statistical analyses. As a clinical psychologist, he has experience conducting research with marginalized communities. Dr. Bordieri will apply his expertise to the design, implementation, and analysis of the project’s mixed-method social science research agenda. As an officer in the Faculty Senate, Dr. Bordieri is also well-positioned to disseminate findings to the faculty and advocate for policy revisions and institutional change.

Dr. Claire Fuller, co-PI, is the Dean of the Jones College of Science, Engineering and Technology and a Professor of Biological Sciences. She served as a mentor circle facilitator and later co-PI on the MSU Catalyst grant. She brings extensive administrative experience to the project. She will be instrumental in advancing the changes identified as necessary by our project. Dr. Fuller is uniquely positioned to disseminate information amongst administrators and to begin to develop plans to implement changes based on findings.

Dr. Diane Nititham, an Associate Professor of Sociology and a co-PI, is a qualitative sociologist specializing in ethnography. She has designed numerous protocols and conducted focus groups, individual and group semi-structured interviews, photo-voice interviews, workshops, and participant observations. Dr. Nititham will apply her expertise to the social science project, attending to the mixed-methods design and intersectional analysis. In her capacity as a Gender Equity Caucus Executive Team member and college DEI committees, she focuses on community-building and policy change for multiply-situated marginalized faculty, making her well-suited to share findings and advocate for minoritized faculty.

Dr. Robin Zhang, Chair and Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences, co-PI, led a subcommittee to study dual-career policies at other institutions and their possible adoption at MSU. She served as a co-PI on the MSU Catalyst grant. She will coordinate MSU-LIVE with the program coordinator.