Ebony O. McGee
Professor of Education, Diversity and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics) Education, Department of Teaching and Learning
As a professor of diversity and STEM education at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College, I investigate what it means to be racially marginalized while minoritized in the context of learning and achieving in STEM higher education and in the STEM professions. I study in particular the racialized structures and institutional barriers that adversely affect the education and career trajectories of underrepresented groups of color, particularly focusing on STEM entrepreneurship. This involves exploring the social, material, and health costs of academic achievement and problematizing traditional forms of success in higher education, with an unapologetic focus on Black folx in these places and spaces. My National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER grant investigates how marginalization undercuts success in STEM through psychological stress, interrupted STEM career trajectories, impostor phenomenon, and other debilitating race-related trauma for Asian, Black, Indigenous, and Latinx doctoral students.
Education is my second career; I left a career in electrical engineering to earn a PhD in mathematics education from the University of Illinois at Chicago, a Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Chicago, and a NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship at Northwestern University. With funding from eleven NSF grants, I cofounded and direct the Explorations in Diversifying Engineering Faculty Initiative or EDEFI (pronounced “edify”). I also cofounded the Institute in Critical Quantitative and Mixed Methodologies Training for Underrepresented Scholars (ICQCM), which aims to be a go-to resource for the development of quantitative and mixed-methods skillsets that challenge simplistic quantifications of race and marginalization. ICQCM receives support from the NSF, The Spencer Foundation, and the W. T. Grant Foundation.
My latest research explores the relationship between STEM innovation and entrepreneurship, whose infrastructure requires enhancements to support a more diverse population of founders and business owners in STEM. I am part of the research team for National GEM Consortium’s Inclusion in Innovation Initiative (i4), which is a $3.5 million cooperative partnership with the NSF to develop a national diversity and inclusion infrastructure for the Innovation Corps (I-Corps) Program. This program supports academic researchers in launching successful tech startups through entrepreneurial training, particularly translating their research discoveries from the laboratory to the marketplace.
My first solo-authored book is entitled Black, Brown, Bruised: How Racialized STEM Education Stifles Innovation: https://www.hepg.org/hep-home/books/black,-brown,-bruised#
Teacher’s College Record Book Review: https://www.tcrecord.org/books/PrintContent.asp?ContentID=23603
University World News Book Review: https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20210317105308151
Science Education Review: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sce.21672
Chemistry World Review: https://www.chemistryworld.com/review/black-brown-bruised-how-racialised-stem-education-stifles-innovation/4013189.article
Book Finalist in the Social Sciences: Education Practice and Theory category, The Association of American Publishers 2022 PROSE Awards
My research has been featured in prominent media outlets, including The Atlantic, Science, Diverse Issues in Higher Education, Nature Human Behaviour and Cancer, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Higher Education Today, NPR’s Codeswitch, The Hechinger Report, Christian Science Monitor, Huffington Post, US News & World Report, Inside Higher Education, Tennessean, Washington Monthly, and The UK Voice Online.
Visit the EDEFI website at https://blackengineeringphd.org/
Visit the ICQCM website at https://www.icqcm.org/
LinkedIn Page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ebony-mcgee-b0328211/
Twitter handle: @Relationshipgap
Representative Publications
Selected MEDIA PRODUCTIONS & OP-ED ARTICLES
McGee, E.O. & Team EDEFI (Apr 15, 2022). Celebrate and highlight the phenomenal work of Black STEM education researchers. https://open.spotify.com/show/7wEsg4pdpWcalqTsF4d3S7
McGee, E.O. (Mar 1, 2022). Dismantle Racism in Science. Science. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abo7849
McGee, E.O. (Feb 6, 2022). Students of color persist in STEM despite racial stereotypes, my research shows. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/02/06/science-diversity-racial-stereotype/ https://pdfiles.s3.amazonaws.com/live/pdf/20220208/2203993805432920911_128321.pdf
McGee, E.O., Parker, L., & White, D. (Sep 28, 2021). We taught Critical Race Theory. Here’s What Our White Students Learned (in their own words). Higher Education Press. https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2021/09/28/what-white-students-say-about-critical-race-theory-course-opinion
McGee, E.O. (June 19, 2021). TV Interview. Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien. https://www.matteroffact.tv/the-work-of-a-black-naturalist-one-of-the-first-cicada-researchers-mostly-overlooked/
McGee, E.O. (June 5, 2021). Impostor syndrome? No. Just racism. https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20210531104710417
McGee, E.O. (2021, May 24). Addressing systemic racism as the cancer of Black people: equity ethic-driven research. Nat Rev Cancer (2021). https://rdcu.be/cpUVX
Stovall, D. O. & McGee, E. O. (2021, Mar 9). Black People Are Still Working Themselves to Death. And It Will Not Stop Anytime Soon. The Medium. https://momentum.medium.com/black-people-are-still-working-themselves-to-death-and-it-will-not-stop-anytime-soon-bc9470bab712
McGee, E. O. (2021, Feb 11). Let’s Remake Racially Unsafe STEM Educational Spaces. Higher Education Today. https://www.higheredtoday.org/2021/02/11/lets-remake-racially-unsafe-stem-educational-spaces/
Selected Recent Publications (*Indicates current or prior junior faculty/postdoctoral/doctoral/graduate mentee co-authorship)
McGee, E. O., & Parker, L.,*Taylor, O., Mack, K. (2022). HBCU College Presidents and their Racially-Conscious Approaches to Diversifying STEM. The Journal of Negro Education, 90(3), 288-305. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/847767/summary
Pearman II, F. A.* & McGee, E. O. (2022). Anti-Blackness and Racial Disproportionality in Gifted Education. Exceptional Children. doi:10.1177/00144029211073523
McGee, E.O., Naphan-Kingery, D.,* Miles, M. L.,* & Joseph, O. (2022). Black Engineering and Computing Faculty’s Equity Ethic: Serving Black Students Between and through Academic Stages. Journal of Higher Education. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00221546.2022.2031704
McGee, E. O. (2021). Fear, Fuel, and Fire! Black STEM Doctoral Students’ Career Decision-Making during the Trump Presidency. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. DOI: 10.1080/09518398.2021.1930246
McGee, E. O., Fang, Y.,* Li, Y.,* Monroe-White, T.* (2021). How an Antiscience President and the COVID-19 Pandemic Altered the Career Trajectories of STEM PhD Students of Color. AERA Open. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23328584211039217
McGee, E.O., Botchway, P. K.,* Naphan-Kingery, D.,* Brockman, A.* Houston, S. L.,* & White, D.* (2021). Racism camouflaged as impostorism and the impact on black STEM doctoral students. Race, Ethnicity, and Education. DOI: 10.1080/13613324.2021.1924137