I am a Boricua mother-scholar-activist living in the Midwest U.S. (though I will always be a Jersey girl at heart). I am a former aquatic ecologist passionate about social justice issues, particularly those related to racialized gender justice in the sciences, disability, and higher education. My research interests include intersectionality, racial and gender equity in science education, science culture and socialization, Whiteness in higher education, critical race theory, critical disability studies, critical visual and textual discourse studies, neoliberal influences on educational reform and science policies and practices, critical theories of praxis, and arts-based educational research (among many other things!).

I am an active member of the Critical Race Studies in Education Association (CRSEA), and I was a founder and editor of the Journal of Critical Thought and Praxis (JCTP), a graduate student-led and social justice-focused journal in the School of Education at Iowa State University. I am a co-founder of the National Coalition for Latinxs with Disabilities (CNLD) as well as an advisory board member of the Invisible Disability Project (IDP).

I am a proud member of Science for the People, a national organization born out of the anti-war movement of the 1960s and dedicated to confronting power, privilege, and oppression in the sciences. I also designed and taught a first-year seminar course by the same name at Nebraska Wesleyan University (NWU). It focused on science communication, public engagement, and activism. In 2015, I designed and taught another first-year seminar on Hidden Figures and intersectionality in STEM.

I am also a part of the Louis Stokes Alliance in Minority Participation (LSAMP) team at NWU. As a LSAMP team member, I and my colleagues work collaboratively to recruit, retain, and empower students of color majoring in a STEM discipline. Similarly, I helped my institution receive a NSF S-STEM grant, which is focused on assisting low-income students in science.

As of May 13, 2019, I received my Ph.D. in Education from Iowa State University! My dissertation is entitled “Speaking Truth to Power and to the People”: Scientist Bloggers of Color as Public Intellectuals. Itis a virtual ethnography of scientist bloggers of color. I have been promoted to the position of Director of the Cooper Center at NWU, but I am looking for a tenure-track position.

You can follow me on Twitter - @LisetteETorres3