Dr. Ali is Associate Professor of Arabic Language and Literature, specializing in medieval Arabic and Islamic studies. He is an award-winning scholar and teacher on race as it pertains to Middle East studies. His scholarship has appeared in the Encyclopedia of Islam THREE, Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies, Al-Qantara, Journal of Arabic Literature, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Women, and the forthcoming Oxford Handbook on Islam and Women. He co-edited The CALICO Journal: Special Issue on Hebrew and Arabic and authored the monograph, Arabic Literary Salons in the Islamic Middle Ages: Poets, Public Performance and the Presentation of the Past, a first in the study of Arabic-Islamic salon culture. His forthcoming article, “Orientalism and White Supremacy: Race, Gaze Training, and the Disparity of Nonwhite Voice,” examines the absence of race in Middle East scholarship and the invisibility of the Arab/Muslim in scholarship on premodern/early modern race thinking. His current research draws on theoretical frameworks from linguistic anthropology and race theory to rethink Orientalist and area studies paradigms, as well as frameworks from medieval studies, women’s studies, and critical theory. In the realm of program building, Dr. Ali has leveraged $4.1 million in grants received to promote equal access to opportunity, as well as diversity and inclusion in Middle Eastern/North African studies. Funding has supported programs, research, and international language education at the Free University in Berlin, University of Texas at Austin, and University of Michigan. Grant makers have included a mix of public and private sources that have shown a vital commitment to the region’s languages, arts, and humanities, such as the American Institute of Maghreb Studies, The Institute for Advanced Studies in Berlin, the US Department of Education, and five Fulbright Awards for research in Germany, Kuwait, Egypt, Morocco, and Spain.

Bart Bartlett is an Arthur F Thurnau Professor of Chemistry, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. He received his AB in Chemistry from Washington University in St. Louis, graduating summa cum laude. He earned his PhD in Inorganic Chemistry from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was a post-doctoral fellow at University of California, Berkeley. He served as the Associate Director for Science and Technology at the UM Energy Institute from January 2014 – December 2019. He is the recipient of many awards for his research and teaching including LSA Class of 1923 Memorial Teaching Award, the Seyhan N. Eğe Faculty Development Award and the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts Excellence in Education Award. His research focuses on understanding chemistry-related basic science needed in the large-scale production of clean, efficient, renewable fuels. His research program addresses these problems in synthesizing compounds that will have immediate impact in fundamental science needs for energy conversion and storage: 1) semiconductor materials that are stable under extremely oxidizing environments under a wide-range of pH to generate solar-derived fuels; 2) high stability electrolytes for next-generation magnesium batteries. Beyond these energy implications, a unifying theme of this research is the synthesis of solid-state materials with well-defined, but easily-tuned structures and compositions that allow electrons or ions to flow within the solid.

Germine Awad’s scholarship is characterized by three interrelated areas of inquiry: prejudice and discrimination, identity and acculturation, and body image among women of color. She has also written in the area of multicultural research methodology. Much of her research is guided by the questions “What factors lead to discrimination against minoritized ethnic groups?” and “What impacts perceptions of experienced discrimination?” The two populations that she has primarily focused on are Arab/Middle Eastern Americans and African Americans. Dr. Awad is concerned with how prejudicial attitudes and ideology impact attitudes towards minoritized ethnic groups generally and within specific domains such as the workplace and higher education. In addition, she examines how racial/ethnic identity and acculturation impact minoritized ethnic groups’ perceptions of discrimination. She has expanded her identity and acculturation research to the study of body image concerns among women of color.

Sarah Burgard is a professor of Sociology and by courtesy, of Epidemiology and Public Policy at the University of Michigan. She is also a Research Professor in the Population Studies Center (PSC). She earned a BA at Reed College and MA and MS degrees in Sociology and Epidemiology and a PhD in Sociology at UCLA. She has been a faculty member at UM since 2005. She studies the life course social determinants of health and wellbeing and related health disparities, and has received funding for survey data collection in these areas from the National Institutes of Health and private foundations. She has been deputy editor or an editorial board member of the American Sociological Review, Demography and the Journal of Health and Social Behavior. At UM she has served as Director of Graduate Studies in Sociology and co-directed the PSC postdoctoral program, was Implementation Lead of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Strategic Plan for ISR, and will be director of the Population Studies Center starting in July 2020. She has received multiple teaching and mentoring awards including the John Dewey Award for long-term commitment to undergraduate education from the College of LSA, the Rackham Distinguished Graduate Mentoring Award, and the Mentoring Award from the Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health (IAPHS).

Amy E. Hughes (she/her) is a Professor of Theatre & Drama in the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance. A theatre historian who studies US theatre/performance during the nineteenth century, Hughes employs theories and methods from disability studies, material and visual culture studies, animal studies, digital humanities, and documentary editing. Her work has been supported by fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, New England Regional Fellowship Consortium, American Antiquarian Society, Library Company of Philadelphia, Massachusetts Historical Society, and Winterthur Library and Museum. She has received multiple awards for her research, teaching, and service, including the Barnard Hewitt Award for Outstanding Research in Theatre History (American Society for Theatre Research), the ATHE-ASTR Award for Excellence in Digital Theatre and Performance Scholarship, a Whiting Foundation Fellowship for Outstanding Teaching in the Humanities, Brooklyn College (CUNY)’s Excellence in Teaching Award, and the Graduate of the Last Decade (GOLD) Award from her alma mater, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Since joining the U-M faculty in 2019, Hughes has been nominated twice for the MLK Spirit Award (North Campus Deans) and once for the Golden Apple Award.

Mike Liemohn is a Professor of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering. He teaches SPACE 101, Introduction to Rocket Science and SPACE/CLIMATE 405-002, Data Analysis and Visualization for Geoscientists. His research focuses on plasma transport in the ionosphere and magnetosphere of the Earth and other solar system bodies. As of March 2019, Mike has authored or co-authored 204 peer-reviewed publications in print, press, or submitted. He currently serves as Chair for the NASA Heliophysics Advisory Committee, a member of the NASA Science Committee, and he is an Executive Committee Member for the AGU Space Physics and Aeronomy Section. He also currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief for JGR-Space Physics journal.   His awards include the U-M College of Engineer Ted Kennedy Family Team Excellence Award, the 2018 U-M College of Engineering Monroe-Brown Foundation Education Excellence Award, and the 2002 U-M Outstanding Research Scientist Award.

Professor Mora’s principal research interests focus on the historical construction of race, gender, and sexuality in the U.S. His book Border Dilemmas explores how the first generations of Mexicans living in the United States grappled with the racial and national ideologies that circulated along the nineteenth-century border. He currently has two major research projects underway. The first explores the relationship between African Americans and Mexican Americans in the early-twentieth-century urban Midwest. He also is writing a history of the fictional character of Zorro from 1919 to the present.  The iconic character serves as a means of tracing changing representations of Mexican Americans, historical memory, and U.S. regionalism.

Patrick Schloss is a Professor of Microbiology & Immunology. He received his B.S. in 1997 and his Ph.D in 2002 from Cornell University in Biological and Environmental Engineering. He then pursued postdoctoral training at the University of Wisconsin. In 2006 he joined the Microbiology faculty of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. In 2009, he moved to the University of Michigan Medical School. His research investigates the role of gut microbiota in preventing bacterial infections and the formation of colonic tumors. In 2014 he was named the Frederick G. Novy Collegiate Professor of Microbiome Research. He is a member of the American Academy of Microbiology. Beyond his research, Dr. Schloss has helped create a community of learning and peer-to-peer teaching around the development of computational skills through the development of a local chapter of the Carpentries Organization.

Denise began her role as Director of the U-M ADVANCE Program in Fall 2023, after having previously served on the STRIDE Committee and as the Associate Director for Research in ADVANCE. She is University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor of Psychology. Her research program in experimental social psychology focuses on intergroup stereotyping, implicit bias, and the experiences of women and underrepresented minorities in science and engineering. She received the Harold R. Johnson Diversity Service Award (2015), and the Sarah Goddard Power Award (2012) from the University of Michigan for her work on diversity-related issues.

Priti Shah is an Arthur F Thurnau Professor of Psychology, Information, and Education and a Faculty Associate in the Research Center for Group Dynamics of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. She received her BA from the University of North Carolina and her PhD from Carnegie Mellon University in 1996. Her research focuses on higher level cognition (thinking, reasoning, problem solving), the basic cognitive mechanisms supporting these abilities (executive functions, attention), and educational application. She has edited 3 volumes and published over 75 articles and chapters. Her work has been funded by the Institute for Educational Sciences, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Office of Naval Research, the Spencer Foundation, and the James S. McDonnell Foundation. She is an Associate Editor at Memory & Cognition and has served on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Educational Psychology and the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. She has received awards for her research, mentoring, and teaching.

Kristen Verhey is the A. Kent Christensen Collegiate Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology in the Medical School and Professor of Biophysics in LS&A. She received her B.S. from the University of Michigan and her Ph.D. from Harvard University where she also did her postdoctoral work. She has been on the UM faculty since 2002. She served as Interim Chair of Cell and Developmental Biology and is currently the Associate Chair. She serves on several editorial boards, study sections, and committees for the American Society of Cell Biology and the Biophysical Society. Her research interests include the role of cytoskeletal filaments and motor proteins in cellular organization, chemomechanical coupling in kinesin motor proteins, and assembly and function of primary cilia.