Shirley Malcom, Director
Shirley Malcom, PhD, is senior advisor to the CEO and Director of SEA Change at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). In her more than 40-year tenure at the Association she has worked to improve the quality and increase access to education and careers in STEM as well as to enhance public science literacy. Dr. Malcom is a trustee of Caltech and regent of Morgan State University. She is a former member of the National Science Board, the policymaking body of the U.S. National Science Foundation, and served on President Clinton’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology. Dr. Malcom, a native of Birmingham, Alabama, received her PhD in ecology from the Pennsylvania State University, masters in zoology from UCLA, and bachelor’s with distinction in zoology from the University of Washington. In addition, she holds 17 honorary degrees.
Dr. Malcom is a former high school science teacher and university faculty member. She serves on the boards of the Heinz Endowments, Public Agenda, National Math-Science Initiative and the Kavli Foundation. In 2003, Dr. Malcom received the Public Welfare Medal of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the highest award given by the Academy.
Beth Ruedi, Associate Program Director
Beth Ruedi, PhD, is an Associate Program Director in the department of Inclusive STEM Ecosystems for Equity and Diversity (ISEED) at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Ruedi serves as part of the team for SEA Change, an initiative promoting systemic transformation in higher education to support true equity and inclusion. She previously served as the director for AAAS Science in the Classroom, a collection of annotated research papers. Ruedi received her PhD in behavior genetics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2007. She has been involved in the STEM professional society sector for a decade, first serving as the founding Director of Education and Professional Development at the Genetics Society of America. There, Dr. Ruedi helped cultivate an educational mission for GSA, resulting in a complex portfolio of over 20 activities, initiatives, partnerships, and awards, many of which worked to address systemic issues underlying the lack of diversity in STEM. In 2016 she joined the Education and Human Resources Directorate, now ISEED, working with Shirley Malcom to direct multiple projects related to STEM literacy, education reform, and diversity & inclusion.
Darla Thompson, Senior Project Director
Darla Thompson, PhD is a Senior Project Director in the Inclusive STEMM Ecosystems for Equity & Diversity (ISEED) at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Dr. Thompson directs SEA Change Biomedicine, a component of SEA Change that supports systemic transformation in the biomedical and health sciences. Previously, she served as faculty and senior program manager for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Health Policy Research Scholars at The George Washington University, a leadership program for doctoral students from systemically excluded and/or historically marginalized populations who are contributing to creating more just, equitable, and healthier communities. Dr. Thompson served as a program officer in the Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice at the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. While there, she led the development of an action collaborative on business engagement in building healthy communities and led several workshops on topics such framing the dialogue on racial and ethnicity to advance health equity, achieving health equity and well-being in rural communities, exploring equity in multisector health partnerships, and community violence as a population health issue. Dr. Thompson created and taught interdisciplinary courses on race, racism, science, medicine, and human diversity. She earned her PhD in the interdisciplinary field of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University, where she primarily focused her historical and social research on technologies of power, enslavement, and incarceration of Black Americans as they struggled to be free.
Erin Conn, Project Director
Erin Conn, PhD, is the SEA Change Community Engagement Manager at AAAS. She holds a BS in biology from Eastern Connecticut State University, where her independent research focused on evolutionary ecology, and earned her PhD from Georgetown University in cell biology, where she worked on chemotherapy development for pediatric cancers. At Georgetown, she co-founded the first graduate student group in STEMM focused on advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion, and served as a student fellow with the Georgetown Women’s Alliance. Dr. Conn served as a member of the Inclusion & Equity committee for the American Association of University Women from 2019-2021, working to implement a diversity and inclusion toolkit to help AAUW branches kickstart their own DEI efforts.
Lily Davey, Project Associate
Lily Davey is the Program Associate for SEA Change at AAAS. She holds a BA in Mathematics and Physics with an Astrophysics concentration from Connecticut College. Ms. Davey was also a scholar of the Power, Knowledge, and Practice Integrative Pathway within the Connecticut College Connections curriculum, where her research focused on gender-based inequity in STEM education. Before joining AAAS, she was the Lloyd V. Berkner Space Policy Intern for the Space Studies Board at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
Matthew Anderson, Senior Business Analyst
Matthew Anderson is a Senior Business Analyst for SEA Change at AAAS. Matthew holds a BA in Theatre from University of Maryland, College Park. He brings 10 years of professional experience in Salesforce. Matthew has volunteered for Capital DC pride events, supporting Washington DC’s LGBTQ+ community. Matthew has past professional experience in healthcare and consulting and is excited to assist SEA Change in their mission to support institutional transformation in STEMM.