Current Staff
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, Program Director
Beth Ruedi, PhD (she/her), is a Program Director in the AAAS Center for STEMM Education and Workforce and manages the SEA Change Awards. She previously served as the director for AAAS Science in the Classroom, a collection of annotated research papers. Beth received her PhD in behavior genetics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2007. She has been involved in the STEMM professional society sector for a decade, first serving as the founding Director of Education and Professional Development at the Genetics Society of America. There, she 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 difficulties broadening participation in STEMM. In 2016 she joined the Education and Human Resources Directorate, now the Center for STEMM Education and Workforce, working with Shirley Malcom to direct multiple projects related to STEM literacy, education reform, and inclusivity for excellence.
Travis York, Director, Center for STEMM Education and Workforce
Travis T. York, Ph.D., serves as the Director of the Center for STEMM Education & Workforce (CSEW) at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). In his role, Dr. York provides leadership for all of AAAS’s externally facing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility initiatives. York’s research and work focus on catalyzing and sustaining systemic change and transformation to achieve inclusive and equitable access and progress through STEMM pathways into the STEMM workforce. Within AAAS, York provides leadership to a talented team who collaborate to create change through dozens of grant-funded projects and initiatives spanning all STEMM fields and the entire educational pathway including the STEMM Opportunity Alliance – recently launched at the White House Summit on STEMM Equity & Excellence, AAAS’s SEA Change Initiative, AAAS S-STEM REC, ARISE Network, Exemplary Pathways Program, L’Oreal USA Women in Science Fellowships, and HBCU Making & Innovation Showcase.
Dr. York serves as the Principal Investigator of the AAAS Scholarships in STEM Resources & Evaluation Center (S-STEM REC), AAAS Noyce, ARISE (Advancing Research and Innovation in the STEM Education of Preservice Teachers in High-Need School Districts), and AAAS Improving Undergraduate STEM Education initiative, Exemplary Pathways Program, and Catalyzing a Data Infrastructure to Support LGBTQ Inclusion in STEM. York has authored numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, and his most recent article, Completion Grants: A multi-method examination of institutional practice, is available in the Journal of Student Financial Aid. York is active in several professional associations and serves on the editorial review board of the Journal of Diversity in Higher Education.
Dr. York, a native of Charleston, South Carolina, received his Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration from The Pennsylvania State University, Master’s in Higher Education, and a Bachelor’s with distinction from Geneva College. York also studied at Oxford University’s Keble College in 2003-04.
Julius Najab, Research & Assessment Manager
Julius Najab, PhD, is a Research & Assessment Manager in the Research & Data Analytics department for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Previously, he served as a research and data analyst consultant. He holds a BA in psychology from the University of Arizona and earned his MA & PhD in psychology from George Mason University, where he focused on measurement, research methodology, evaluation, and statistics.
Former Staff
Darla Thompson, Senior Project Director
Darla Thompson, Ph.D., was a Senior Project Director in the Center for STEMM Education & Workforce (CSEW) at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Dr. Thompson led the biomedical/health sciences and disciplinary society components of SEA Change. 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 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 as achieving health equity and well-being in rural communities, exploring equity in multisector health partnerships, and community violence as a population health issue. She earned her PhD in the interdisciplinary field of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University, where she primarily focused her historical and social systems 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 a Project Director at AAAS in the AAAS Center for STEMM Education and Workforce, previously serving as director of the SEA Change Community and SEA Change Institute. She holds a BS in biology from Eastern Connecticut State University and earned her PhD from Georgetown University in the department of Biochemistry and Molecular & Cellular Biology where her research centered around chemotherapy development for pediatric cancers. At Georgetown, she co-founded the first graduate student group in university history dedicated to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEMM. She was selected as a fellow with the Georgetown Women’s Alliance, earned nominations as the Outstanding Leader in a Graduate Student Group and the Dr. Karen Gale Exceptional PhD Student Awards, and was recognized as the 2019 Woman in STEM. 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, Senior Program Associate
Lily Davey was the Senior Program Associate for SEA Change at AAAS and continues to serve as a Senior Program Associate in the AAAS Center for STEMM Education and Workforce. She holds a BA in Mathematics and Physics with an Astrophysics concentration from Connecticut College. Lily 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 was the Sr Business analyst for SEA Change at AAAS. Matthew holds a BA in Theatre from University of Maryland, College Park. He brings 13 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 assisted SEA Change in their mission to support institutional transformation in STEMM.
Michael Feder, Program Director
Michael Feder, PhD, was the inaugural Director of the SEA Change Institute. He continues to serve as a Program Director for the AAAS Center for STEMM Education and Workforce. Dr. Feder brings over a decade of experience in STEMM education policy, research, and practice to the initiative. Previously, he was director of Battelle’s STEMx network, served as a policy analyst at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and was a Senior Program Officer for the Board on Science Education at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. Over his career Dr. Feder has contributed committee authored books on 2-year and 4-year STEM degrees, informal science education, K-12 science education standards, and federal investments in STEM education.
Valeria Sinclair-Chapman, Deputy Director
Dr. Valeria Sinclair-Chapman was the inaugural Deputy Director for the SEA Change initiative at the American Association for the Advancement of Science before returning to her position of Professor of Political Science at Purdue University. At Purdue she previously served as director of the Diversity Catalyst Program in the ADVANCE-Purdue Center for Faculty Success, and the Center for Research on Diversity and Inclusion (CRDI). She has served as a journal editor, including of the American Political Science Review, as a founding director of the American Political Science Association’s Institute for Civically Engaged Research (ICER), and in various capacities on the councils of national and regional political science associations. Sinclair-Chapman has more than two decades of experience leading DEI initiatives, including launching organizations and programs for undergraduate and graduate student support, shaping policy in regional and national organizations, and working with faculty leaders within institutions on diversity and inclusion initiatives. Her research agenda examines the effects of racial, ethnic, and gender diversity across a range of political institutions and behaviors.