STEM Equity Exchange - February 2019

By Adityajit Kang & Carolina Marques de Mesquita

During the past two months, CGEST has been finalizing a visualization network of ASU faculty and staff in STEAM+H (Science, Technology, Engineering, Agriculture, Mathematics, and Health) fields. Dr. Steve Elliott, our postdoctoral scholar, has spearheaded the project.

“The idea for this project came when I joined CGEST in March 2017. As part of my doctoral education, I had learned how to do network visualizations for my own research,” says Dr. Elliot. The project has two components: the first is a database of nearly 700 faculty and staff, including information on where they are and what departments they work in. The second component is a set of visualizations that make it easy to navigate this database.

Together, these components may serve as a resource for ASU researchers who are curious about pursuing education research funding as it relates to diversity and inclusion in STEM. These visualizations take the form of a network graph, which may, for example, allow an individual to identify potential collaborators across ASU’s four campuses and connect with individuals outside their center, department, or school.

Dr. Elliot presented his data visualization on ASU’s West campus during February’s STEM Equity Exchange. “There is potential here to start to build a kind of collaboration network—pursuing more grants and pursuing more research projects at ASU,” says Dr. Elliott. “ASU's an interesting institution because it's so big. It's big geographically, and in terms of just population—there are so many students, faculty members and staff. These geographical and organizational roadblocks can prevent people from figuring out that there's nearby collaborators.”

CGEST’s Founding Executive Director, Dr. Kimberly Scott, is interested in the idea of this “hidden college”—a group of people with similar interests who have the potential to pursue a powerful research program that has not yet been fully tapped into. “This type of analysis is critical for engaging in the trandisciplinary work needed to challenge the silos preventing real progress for underrepresented folk in STEM.”

“We're always going to be wanting to improve the visualizations with better data. We would love to include folks who aren’t on the database yet,” continues Dr. Elliott. Interested faculty and staff are encouraged to submit information on their own research interests and location within ASU to enhance these connections.