Invited Speakers & Chairs

Monica Cardenas Guzman is a social science researcher and advocate for equity in higher education who collaborated on and served as a coauthor for numerous STEM equity research projects. A community college alumnus herself, Monica studied Psychology and Social Behavior at the University of California in Irvine, completing an honors thesis examining the effects that prolonged parental immigration detention had on family dynamics and child development. Monica has since worked as a UC Berkeley College Advisor Fellow, leading a cohort of 300 first generation/low income high school students in San Jose, California, and then as a Diversity and Engagement Policy Analyst for the University of California Office of the President. She has also worked as the Financial Aid Adviser for West Valley Community College, in Saratoga California; where she managed over a million dollars in state and private funding for the West Valley Community Grant, First Year and Second Year Viking Promise. She is now the Administrative Assistant for the Office of Outreach and School Relations for De Anza Community College, in Cupertino, California, where she leads and supports initiatives around educational equity and accessibility.

Dr. Chaya Gopalan received her PhD in Physiology from the University of Glasgow, Scotland. Upon completing two years of postdoctoral training at Michigan State University, she began her teaching career at St. Louis Community College. After a short tenure at St. Louis College of Pharmacy, Dr. Gopalan joined the departments of Applied Health, Primary Care and Health Systems at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Her teaching is in the areas of anatomy, physiology, and pathophysiology at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Dr. Gopalan has been practicing evidence-based teaching where she has tested team-based learning methodology, case-based learning methodology and most recently, the flipped classroom. She has received several grants in pursuing her research interests.

As Associate Dean at SHSU-COM, Dr Hopper is involved in starting a new medical school with a mission to prepare physicians to practice in underserved and rural communities. Prior to accepting the Dean’s positon at Sam Houston State University, Dr Hopper taught physiology and served as the Director of Student Research and Scholarly Work at Indiana University School of Medicine (IUSM). In her director’s role, she designed and implemented a program where all first-year medical students engaged in research and service in academic, public, and clinical settings. Dr Hopper earned tenure at IUSM and the Trustees Teaching Award twice based on her contributions to development of a “renewed” curriculum and her success in presenting and publishing studies focused on the scholarship of teaching and learning. Dr Hopper has participated in IUSM’s Leadership in Academic Medicine and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities Emerging Leaders Programs. Active in a number of professional organizations, Dr. Hopper currently serves as the Chapter Advisory Council Chair for the American Physiological Society, the HAPS Conference Site Selection Committee, and Past-President of the Indiana Physiological Society.

Jeff Schinske is the Biology Department Chair and Anatomy & Physiology coordinator at Foothill College where he conducts research on equity and inclusion in science classrooms. He leads two federal grant programs: The Scientist Spotlights Initiative (National Institutes of Health), which supports the development and dissemination of inclusive biology curricula, and CC Bio INSITES (National Science Foundation), which empowers community college biology faculty to conduct and publish education research. Jeff has authored numerous high-profile biology education research articles, is a steering committee member for the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER), and serves on the editorial board for the journal CBE-Life Sciences Education. Jeff is a frequent featured speaker in the areas of discipline-based education research and STEM equity, and was the 2018 recipient of the national Outstanding Undergraduate Science Teaching Award from the Society for College Science Teachers.

Raymond J. Shaw is Associate Professor of Psychology and former academic administrator at Merrimack College, and co-editor of the Journal of Assessment and Institutional Effectiveness. In his administrative position, as Vice Provost, he was responsible for accreditation and for encouraging a culture of assessment of student learning. Subsequently, he became Director of General Education, until returning full-time to his true passion, teaching. His work on assessment has focused on identifying what faculty care most about when it comes to student learning and change, and working on ways of measuring intangible, ineffable, and hard-to-define learning outcomes.

Mary Pat Wenderoth is a Principal Lecturer in the Biology Department at the University of Washington, Seattle (UW) where she teaches animal physiology courses and conducts biology education research on how students learn biology. Her main research interests focus on assessing implementation of cognitive science principles in the classroom, particularly those associated with conceptual change, use of first principles in constructing conceptual frameworks in physiology and student metacognition. She also does research on academic achievement gaps in STEM and effectiveness of professional development efforts to close those gaps. She received the UW Distinguished Teaching Award in 2001and has served as the co-director of the UW Teaching Academy. She was recognized by the National Association of Biology Teachers as the Biology Education Researcher of 2017. She received the Claude Bernard Distinguished Lectureship of the American Physiology Society Teaching of Physiology Section in 2019. She is co-founder of the UW Biology Education Research Group (UW BERG) and the national Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER). She served as a facilitator at the HHMI Summer Institute for Undergraduate Biology Education from 2007 -2011. Dr. Wenderoth earned her BS in Biology from the Catholic Univeristy of America in Washington D.C., a MS in Women’s Studies from George Washington University, a MS in Exercise Physiology from Purdue University and her PhD in Physiology from Rush University in Chicago.