With support from Institute Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and the ADVANCE Program, the Diversity and Inclusion Fellows Program brings together faculty, staff, and students who individually and collectively advance their action, research, or teaching objectives while improving inclusivity on campus. This program is a bottom-up initiative, tapping into the creativity and diversity of thought among our campus community to crowdsource ideas that create long-term culture change.
Sinet Adous
Sinet Adous is a senior studying International Affairs, with a minor in Sociology. Of her many involvements at Tech, she has enjoyed serving as the vice president of External Affairs in the Undergraduate Student Government Association, where she led and continues to lead efforts to increase voter engagement on campus and connect with the larger Atlanta community through art. A major project she is currently leading aims to paint a mural on campus that will celebrate student diversity. After spending a semester working as the late Representative John Lewis's congressional intern through the Federal Jackets Fellowship program, Sinet plans to pursue a career in civil and human rights law.
Anabel Alfonso
Anabel Alfonso is a fourth-year undergraduate Biomedical Engineering and pre-med student from Miami, FL. Her research focuses on the delivery of immunomodulatory therapeutics. As a former personal care assistant, she became aware of the unique obstacles those with disabilities face while pursuing a higher education and decided to become an ally for the Georgia Tech disabled community. As Georgia Tech's ABLE Alliance’s founding vice president, she has helped direct initiatives for disability inclusion and hopes to expand existing academic resources for the community during her fellowship.
Jalen Borne
Jalen Borne (he/him/his) is a third-year Chemistry major from Marietta, GA. He is interested in learning about unique and innovative fields within his major such as computational chemistry and nanochemistry. He is involved with Chamber Choir, Student Affiliates of the American Chemical Society, Polymer Undergraduate Network of Students, and the VIP Program. As a Diversity and Inclusion Fellow, he hopes to create a campus wide initiative to get more underrepresented minorities involved in academic research and create a network of undergraduates, graduates, and faculty. Jalen wants future students to be able to have a positive minority experience in the research community.
Joshua Burr
Joshua Burr is currently a full-time MBA student in the Scheller College of Business. He is originally from Portlandia (Oregon), having graduated with a bio-engineering degree from Oregon State University. Prior to returning for graduate school he worked as a technical field services for ThermoFisher Scientific. In his spare time, he plays for the Georgia Tech club soccer team, has recently found the joy of Waffle House, and travels when there isn’t pandemics. Joshua is looking to increase the desire to participate in allyship activities, specifically around female empowerment in the workplace.
Dian Chung
Dian Chung joined Georgia Tech in 2007 following a rewarding career in higher education administration. She began her current role, director of Human Resources in the College of Sciences, in 2010. Dian holds graduate and undergraduate degrees in global management, business administration, and computer science and is actively involved in mentoring activities locally and internationally. She has had a lifelong passion for mentoring and innovative leadership and serves as an advocate for the interests of students. Dian’s innovative leadership also led to a Georgia Tech Outstanding Staff Award for Innovation in 2016.
Juan-Pablo Correa-Baena
Juan-Pablo has been an assistant professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering since January 2019. He pursued his Ph.D. in environmental engineering and materials science at the University of Connecticut and was awarded a Department of Energy postdoctoral fellowship to conduct his research at MIT. Juan-Pablo is passionate about bringing diversity to academia and about mentoring students. He loves immersing himself in different cultures. Originally from Colombia, he has also lived in Ecuador, Germany, Singapore, Switzerland, and in the northeastern and southeastern USA. He bikes to Georgia Tech every day and is an advocate for more inclusive infrastructure.
Kenneth Cunefare
Ken Cunefare (he/him/his) is a professor of Mechanical Engineering. He joined the faculty in 1991 after completing post-doctoral studies at the Technical University of Berlin. His research has been directed toward various topics in acoustics and vibration, with emphasis on advanced noise control, structural acoustic modeling, and experimental methods. Recently, he has explored energy harvesting from the noise in hydraulic systems, as well as noise control within pressurized hydraulic systems. Ken’s most recent teaching activities have focused on Capstone Design, as well as Vertically Integrated Projects for the student teams he advises. He is the advisor to the Georgia Tech Student Competition Center housing seven student-engineering competition teams, and he directly advises the GTMotorsports and GTOff-Road teams.
Giovani Galicia
Giovani Galicia is a Computer Science graduate student in the College of Computing, specializing in Interactive Intelligence. As a Diversity and Inclusion Fellow, he hopes to implement a remote and bilingual digital literacy program to help Hispanic/Latinx families develop their digital literacy skills with the goal of empowering them to take full advantage of the vast online resources available to them. Giovani emigrated to the U.S. from Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico in 2005, and became interested in providing digital literacy classes after volunteering at his local computer community center during his senior year of high school.
Corey Goergen
Corey Goergen is a Marion L. Brittain postdoctoral fellow in the Writing and Communication Program. He completed his doctoral work at Emory University in 2018. His research and teaching interests include disability studies, accessibility, the history of addiction, and British literature of the long eighteenth-century. His writing has appeared, among other places, in the peer-reviewed journal Eighteenth-Century Studies and the scholarly blog The Rambling.
Emily Grubert
Emily Grubert is a civil engineer and environmental sociologist working on ways to make decision-making more just, effective, and informed. Specifically, she studies how community and societal priorities can be better incorporated into multicriteria policy and project decisions, mainly related to energy transitions. Grubert is particularly interested in changing the decision making-paradigm from relying on a decision maker’s value judgments to routinely assessing and incorporating diverse worldviews from affected communities and society at large. Grubert is an assistant professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and, by courtesy, of Public Policy at Georgia Tech.
Laura Haynes
Laura currently serves as the assistant director of Operations in GT Professional Education. A former English professor, she holds an English BA from Florida State University, an English MA from Clark Atlanta University, and an English PhD from Louisiana State University. Prior to joining Tech in 2013, Laura served as the director of Graduate Student Assessment and Retention at Clark Atlanta University and also as a program administrator for the Doctoral Scholars Program at the Southern Regional Education Board. With over 20 years of service in higher education, coupled with her engagement in various civic organizations, Laura is committed to community building while helping others achieve personal potential. At Tech, Laura has participated in the Leading Edge Leadership Coaching Fellowship program (2017-2018 cohort), the Inclusive Leaders program (2018 cohort), and is especially excited to begin her new venture in the Diversity and Inclusion Fellowship program.
Tiffany Johnson
Tiffany Johnson (she/her/hers) is a work and wellness researcher, writer, and teacher. She received her Ph.D from Smeal College of Business (Penn State University) in 2016. Tiffany teaches Organizational Behavior at Georgia Tech and does research related to work(places), equity, and wellness. Her work has been published in major management outlets such as Journal of Applied Psychology, Organization Studies, Organizational Behavior and Decision Making Processes, and Organizational Psychology Review. Outside of her research and teaching at Georgia Tech, she enjoys practicing and teaching yoga and meditation, and leading retreats and sessions for Black and Indigenous Women in Academia.
Kyriaki Kalaitzidou
Kyriaki Kalaitzidou is the Rae S. and Frank H. Neely Professor and Associate Chair for Faculty Development in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. She joined the faculty as an assistant professor in 2007. Previously, she worked as a post-doctoral researcher in the Polymer Science and Engineering Department at UMass-Amherst. She received her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering/Materials Science from Michigan State University and her M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Michigan Technological University. She was part of the second cohort of the Provost’s Emerging Leaders Program, graduated from the ELATE Leadership Program in 2019 and served as Provost’s Fellow for Faculty Development in 2019-2020. Her expertise is on manufacturing of polymer structures and composites.
Shiraz Karaa
Shiraz Karaa is a licensed mental health professional at the Counseling Center and has departmental roles including Satellite Counselor, Outreach Coordinator, and Diversity and Inclusion Coordinator. She has worked for over 15 years as a licensed professional counselor in higher education within the University System of Georgia in roles where she advocated for the mental health needs of college students from diverse backgrounds. One of the highlights of her college counseling career the implementation of a holistic college community support program for student veterans with specific background-defined needs. Shiraz wants to collaborate with various segments of the Tech community to better identify marginalized and underserved populations and serve them in ways that are sensitive and responsive to their needs and preferences in terms of the receipt of mental health information and service.
Dani Lechner
Dani Lechner (she/her) currently serves as the program coordinator for the Georgia Tech Women’s Resource Center. Originally from rural, southeastern Virginia, Dani received her B.A. in Sociology from North Carolina State University and her M.Ed in College Student Personnel Administration from James Madison University. During her time at Tech, she has developed and facilitated student dialogue programs on diet culture and violence and worked with campus partners in Health Initiatives to transform body-image and wellness programs to be inclusive and affirming of fat student experiences. As a Diversity and Inclusion Fellow, she will be developing learning opportunities for the campus community focused on interrogating anti-fatness and diet culture, centering fat liberation, and equipping participants with tangible interventions to end fat oppression in higher education. Dani is a lover of all-things Halloween and Taco Bell and spends her free-time creating stained glass art and biological illustrations.
Michael LiBretto
Mikey is entering his fifth year in the Biorobotics and Human Modeling Lab where he does posture-based optimal manipulator control (hella math), and still doesn’t know how he got into the ME PhD program. When not worshipping Matlab, he tries to indulge his unyielding emo-era interests (and to min/max any RPG he gets near). Unabashed in his self-expression, he believes that the world could use some more weirdos and that a heteronormative population is a gigantic waste. Despite being his own harshest critic, he is firm in his belief that he, and every queer in STEM, is valid.
Matthew Lim
Matthew Lim is a first-year student in the Masters of Human Computer Interaction program at Georgia Tech. Beginning in his undergradate career, he worked to direct strategic initiatives at the Hive, the interdisciplinary makerspace located in the Van Leer building. Matthew is continuing his tenure as the director of strategy at the Hive and plans to work as a Diversity and Inclusion Fellow to introduce further inclusivity initiatives in the makerspace. He is also involved on campus as a staff member at Design Bloc and a member of the Digital Threats to Democracy Lab under Michael Best.
Kimberly Molina-Veronico
Kimberly Molina-Veronico is a third-year History, Technology, and Society major with a minor in Business and Technology through the Denning Technology and Management program. Throughout her time at Tech, Kim has been involved with numerous student organizations including being the Taste of Latin America Chair for the Society of Hispanic and Professional Engineers, vice president of Student Events for the Hispanic Recruitment Team, and is currently president of the Latin American Student Organization, an organization she started with her friends. She has always been interested in contributing to the community and is extremely excited to work throughout the year as a Diversity and Inclusion fellow aiming to create a conducive environment for the entire Georgia Tech community.
Susana Morris
Susana M. Morris is an associate professor of Literature, Media, and Communication. She is the author of Close Kin and Distant Relatives: The Paradox of Respectability in Black Women’s Literature (UVA 2014), co-editor, with Brittney C. Cooper and Robin M. Boylorn, of The Crunk Feminist Collection (Feminist Press 2017), and co-editor, with Brittney C. Cooper and Chanel Craft Tanner, of the forthcoming young adult handbook, Feminist AF: The Guide to Crushing Girlhood (Norton 2021). Her current research explores Black women’s relationships to Afrofuturism, the Anthropocene, and feminism.
Kim Paige
Kim L. Paige, Ph.D. is an educational outreach manager within biomedical engineering. Joining Georgia Tech in 2001, her academic career spans 16 years in student affairs and student development. She now leads and facilitates community engagement and outreach initiatives to support and improve the experiences for underserved and underrepresented groups. Improving student access, retention, persistence, and leadership capacity has been her foci in her research and practice. As a 2020 Diversity and Inclusion Fellow, she looks forward to more inclusively transforming the transfer student experience. When not working, she enjoys journaling, reggae music, cooking, and being with family.
Robert "Trey" Quinn
Robert “Trey” Quinn is a third-year Computer Science major with cerebral palsy from Milton, Georgia. He serves as the Youth Advocate for Tools for Life, Georgia’s Assistive Technology Act Program, collaborating with academic faculty and state leaders on public assistive technology projects. Trey is the founding president of ABLE Alliance, a student-organization that works strategically with multiple campus entities as well as companies such as Google to promote ADA compliance and disability inclusion at Georgia Tech. He has experience in rehabilitation engineering, accessible design, and disability advocacy. Trey works as an undergraduate researcher under Cassie Mitchell, applying machine learning to study neurological disease. In his free time, Trey enjoys hanging out with friends, performing stand-up comedy (sitting down), and keeping his staff of personal caregiving assistants on their toes. Trey plans to attend graduate school and pursue a career leveraging artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction to engineer a more inclusive world for people of all abilities.
Devesh Ranjan
Devesh Ranjan is a J. Erskine Love Jr. professor and associate chair for Research in the School of Mechanical Engineering. He earned a bachelor's degree from the NIT-Trichy (India) in 2003, and master's (2005) and Ph.D. (2007) degrees from the UW-Madison. He currently serves on the Editorial Board of Shock Waves and as an Associate Editor for ASME- JFE. He is a recipient of NSF CAREER Award, US AFOSR Young Investigator Award, and DOE Early Career Award (first Tech recipient). Devesh participated in the third Cohort of Provost’s Emerging Leaders Program, served as Provost Teaching and Learning Fellow 2018-2020, and has been selected for the Governor’s Teaching Fellows Program in 2020. His research program focuses on the turbulent mixing at extreme conditions and advanced power conversion cycles for energy production.
Vicki Rogers
Vicki Rogers serves as the ITSM Change Manager in the Office of Information Technology at Georgia Tech. She has over 20 years of IT experience including both technical and leadership roles. She has expertise in service management, change management, leadership development and diversity in IT. Vicki holds a BBA in Business Management, an MBA and an EdS in Learning, Leadership and Organizational Development. Her graduate research involved cultivating and developing women leaders in higher education IT divisions. She is a regular national speaker on leadership, service management, diversity topics and change.
Chris Rozell
Christopher Rozell is a professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering where he develops technology to enable interactions between the biologically and artificially intelligent systems. He was one of six international recipients of the Scholar Award in Studying Complex Systems from the James S. McDonnell Foundation 21st Century Science Initiative in 2014, as well as receiving a National Science Foundation CAREER Award. In addition to his research, Rozell has been recognized for excellence in teaching through the Class of 1940 W. Howard Ector Outstanding Teacher Award (2019) and the CETL/BP Junior Faculty Teaching Excellence Award (2013).
Nancy Sandlin
Nancy Sandlin (MGT 1992) has worked for the Office of Development at Georgia Tech since 1999, where she first joined the development team in the College of Computing. She later joined the fundraising efforts for the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering before taking her current post as director of development for the Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering. Nancy leads the School’s fundraising program and works with alumni, corporations, and others to secure resources to support faculty, students, and programs at Georgia Tech. In June 2020, Nancy was honored as an Inclusive Leadership Academy “Culture Champion."
Sania Shaikh
Sania Shaikh is a third-year Computer Science major/Film and Media minor from Milton, Georgia. Her hobbies include filmmaking, henna, and all forms of creative arts. Her talents include making a great cup of chai, being good at puzzles, and being able to write decent poetry. As a female Muslim immigrant, she is passionate about recognizing her privilege and using it to help other members of her communities. It is her belief that progress can only be truly helpful if it is inclusive and -- at the very least -- perceptive of the often underrepresented facets of society that it affects.
Hannah Sherrill
Hannah Sherrill is a fourth-year undergraduate student from Sandy Springs, Georgia. She is studying Business Administration with a concentration in Strategy and Innovation with a minor in Leadership Studies. Hannah is involved on campus as a Scheller Business Ambassador, a member of the Society of Women in Business, a member of a Panhellenic sorority, and currently serves as the Panhellenic president. She is excited for the opportunity to combine her experience in all-female organizations on campus with her minor in leadership studies as a Diversity and Inclusion Fellow. Her project will uncover what we can learn from highly effective female teams.
Brandi Simula
Brandy L. Simula, Ph.D. (she/her/hers) is a professional development specialist in the Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Education and Faculty Development and a queer, first-gen feminist sociologist. Her research focuses on identities and inequalities and has been published in Social Sciences, Sociology Compass, Sexualities, Journal of Homosexuality, Journal of Bisexuality and in anthologies on serving students from underrepresented backgrounds. She currently serves as a presidential appointee on the American Sociological Association’s Committee on the Status of Women and on the Diversity Committees of the Graduate Career Consortium and Professional and Organizational Developer’s Network.
Julie Sonnerberg-Klein
Julie Sonnenberg-Klein is assistant director of the VIP Program at Georgia Tech and a Ph.D. student in Educational Policy Studies at Georgia State University. Julie’s research interest is equity in undergraduate research programs, which she has studied in VIP through enrollment and return-rates, social network analysis of peer evaluations, and the effect of recruiting methods on enrollment patterns. As a Diversity and Inclusion Fellow, Julie would like to partner with one or more minority-serving student organizations to study email recruiting practices, and to develop communications guidelines that support equity in VIP and academic enrichment programs.
Brandy Stanfield-Nagel
Brandy Nagel works at Georgia Tech's Economic Development Lab. The lab help universities and communities grow with innovation-led economic development programs. In addition, the Economic Development Lab teaches evidence-based entrepreneurship (Lean Startup) and offers other programs to support entrepreneurship and economic development. Brandy has served as a part of the NSF I-Corps program since 2012. Recent projects include assisting entrepreneurs and entrepreneur support organizations in the greater Atlanta area, Puerto Rico, Chile, South Korea, and India.
