Group Members
The members of the SCRDG bring a wealth of prior experiences, including many years of laboratory-based research and training of young scientists, extensive program evaluation experiences with STEM programs, expertise with theory and practice through programs promoting diversity and success of underrepresented groups and women. All of the professional staff of the SCRDG bring skills and experience with qualitative research methods and data analysis; some bring expertise with quantitative methods as well. Many important research questions require sophisticated quantitative and statistical data. However, the SCRDG has purposefully chosen to bring together a unique group of qualitative researchers and to focus on those questions and hypotheses that can only be addressed with qualitative methods.
Group Leader
Rick McGee, PhD
Associate Dean for Faculty Recruitment and Professional Development
Associate Professor of Medical Education
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
View Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine faculty profile
Rick McGee, leader of the SCRDG, has over 30 years of experience, first as a successful cellular neurobiologist and pharmacology professor, leader of PhD and MD/PhD programs, designer of programs and interventions to guide development of young scientists, and Program Director for numerous NIH-funded diversity initiatives. In the past 15 years, he has shifted from laboratory research to social-science research to study research training in addition to leading it. In his current academic position he is responsible for guiding the development of research expertise of young clinical and basic science faculty. He currently is PI of 5 NIH-funded research and research training program awards. He also has much experience as a program evaluator and evaluation consultant to research training programs around the U.S.
McGee's CV (PDF)
Senior Scientists
Patricia Campbell, PhD
President
Campbell-Kibler Associates, Inc.
Pat Campbell, SCRDG Senior Scientist and President of Campbell-Kibler Associates, Inc, has been involved in STEM educational research and evaluation with a focus on issues of race/ethnicity and gender since the mid 1970's. Formerly, an associate professor of research, measurement and statistics at Georgia State University, she has authored more than 100 publications. Her varied professional activities include conducting educational evaluation and research training in South Africa and Uganda and serving as an expert witness in the Citadel and other sex discrimination cases. An Association for Women in Science (AWIS) Fellow, she received the Betty Vetter Research Award from Women and Engineering Program Advocates Network (WEPAN) and the Willystine Goodsell Award from the American Educational Research Association.
Campbell's CV (PDF)
Team Scientists
Robin Remich, MAT, MEd
Research Associate
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Robin Remich joined SCRDG in the fall of 2008 after working as a practitioner in education for 20+ years, including teaching, student affairs and administrative positions. Two common threads have run through her work: fostering the success of learners who do not readily see themselves fitting within the culture of education and using student development and learning theory to inform professional practice. A highlight of her career was working with first-generation and low-income students through advising and program director roles for a Student Support Services TRiO Program at Oakton Community College. In addition to an early start as an elementary school teacher, she has taught college success, English and counseling at the college level. Robin’s transition from practitioner to researcher was facilitated by coursework and experience as a research assistant during her doctoral studies in higher education at Loyola University, which complemented her ongoing passion to understand and support diverse learners at all levels.
Remich's CV (PDF)
Christine Wood, PhD
Research Associate
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Christine Wood received her PhD in Sociology from Northwestern University. Christine is a qualitative sociologist whose work centers on the sociology of gender and the sociology of knowledge, science, and medicine. Her dissertation research considered the formation of gender and women's studies programs in American universities, and the way that this interdisciplinary field promoted new opportunities for research careers within traditional disciplines. More generally, Christine is interested in understanding the academy as a professional field, and understanding the conditions under which opportunities change within it. She is excited to apply her expertise directly to the case of the biomedical sciences.
Wood's CV (PDF)
Study and Project Coordinators
Nicole Langford
Administrative Assistant
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Nicole Langford serves as the Administrative Assistant for Rick McGee and the SCRDG team. She recently served as a part-time transcription checker for the team before moving into this role.
Langford's Resume (PDF)
Ongoing Collaborators
Lynn Gazley, PhD MPH
Assistant Professor of Sociology
The College of New Jersey
Lynn Gazley, PhD MPH and sociologist, has studied the participation of extra-U.S. researchers and clinics in globalized HIV medical research. She applies this work to understanding diversity in the biological sciences more generally, highlighting the interaction between the social structure of academic science and the individual choices that create career trajectories. She has been part of the SCRDG since 2010.
Gazley's CV (PDF)
Jill Keller, PhD
Senior Scientist
Jill Keller was the Director of the Office of Educational Development at the Arizona Health Sciences Center in Tucson, Arizona until 2006 and until her retirement in 2008, she was Director of Research for Student Services. During her tenure in the College of Medicine, she developed research and evaluation studies using qualitative methodologies. Her scholarly interests include the study of students' perceptions of their educational experiences and career development and the design and study of classroom environments to encourage students to think more deeply about important science concepts. In 1996, 1998 and 1999 she was recognized by the AAMC Western Group on Educational Affairs for her use of qualitative and quantitative approaches to evaluate the University of Arizona’s Summer Bridge Program and other research projects in medical education. In addition, she has designed and evaluated two projects incorporating technology to provide structured learning environments in which students can enhance their critical thinking skills. Both of these projects were funded through the University of Arizona’s Instructional Technology grants program. In the past, she has been Special Project Associate for the evaluation of the NIH funded program “Training in Translational Research: Bench to Bedside” at Mayo Graduate School. She worked with Dr. Richard McGee using semi structured interviews and grounded theory to study the characteristics of students who persist toward research careers and the impact 3 to 12 month research experiences have on the trajectory of their career choices. In addition, she had responsibility for part of the evaluation of the Hispanic Center of Excellence (HCOE) at the University of Arizona. Currently, she continues to work with Dr. McGee and follow her interests in underrepresented group’s career development as a Senior Scientist with the Scientific Careers Research and Development Group in the NIH funded “Career Decision-making of Future Minority Biomedical Faculty”.
Keller's CV (PDF)
Michelle Naffziger, PhD
Research Associate
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Michelle Naffziger earned her PhD in Sociology from Northwestern University. She joined SCRDG in 2011, with a special focus on understanding how underrepresented minority students evaluate career options in the sciences and may be able to benefit from a coaching intervention. Her previous work has been driven by a focus on the ways in which culture and structure intersect to generate and sustain inequality in choice as well as outcomes as they relate to disparities in education. For her dissertation, she drew from theoretical foundations and training in both cultural sociology and the sociology of education to consider how staff members in a new college coaching program in Chicago Public Schools help low-income, usually first-generation college students overcome barriers they face along the road to college and choose colleges in relevant, personally meaningful ways.
Naffziger's CV (PDF)
Simon Williams, PhD MA MSc
Research Associate
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Simon Williams is a medical sociologist by background who has also recently worked in public health. Simon joins Northwestern and SCRDG following a research position at the University of Bath and a PhD at Cardiff University, both in the UK. Simon’s doctoral research focused on public engagement with issues related to science and technology. This research examined innovative methods for facilitating public participation in science and technology decision-making. Simon has also taught medical sociology to medical students, and his interests here include looking at ways in which new technologies and social media can be used to supplement conventional methods of teaching and learning.
Former Group Members
Anne Caliendo, MSEd
Project Coordinator
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Anne Caliendo has served as a qualitative researcher and project manager for studies of STEM careers, STEM instruction and learning, education reform policy, and adolescent development. In particular, she enjoys the challenge of designing and implementing qualitative coding systems. She is also interested in novel observational data collection techniques. Her academic background includes educational psychology and anthropology, with graduate work about the ways classroom instruction shapes adolescents’ academic identities and their understanding of the nature of science.
Toni Gutierrez, PhD
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Anthony M. Johnson, MA, PhD
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Anthony Johnson is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology at Northwestern University. His research interests are in the sociology of education (with a particular expertise in higher education), race and ethnicity, and culture. His current work examines processes of stratification within higher education as it relates to the social experiences of underrepresented racial/ethnic minorities navigating STEM majors. Anthony joined the SCRDG in 2012 with an interest in understanding the role of biomedical scientific intervention programs in shaping minority students' interest in becoming scientists.
Ebony McGee, PhD
Assistant Professor of Diversity and Urban Schooling
Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College
Ebony McGee is an Assistant Professor of Diversity and Urban Schooling at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College and a member of Scientific Careers Research and Development Group at Northwestern University. She earned her PhD in Curriculum and Instruction (University of Illinois at Chicago), concentrating in mathematics education and completed postdoctoral appointments at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University. As a former electrical engineer, she is concerned with science, technology, engineering mathematics (STEM) learning and participation among marginalized students of color. Ebony McGee’s research focuses on the role of racialized biases in educational and career attainment, resiliency, mathematics identity and identity development in high-achieving marginalized students of color in STEM fields. Expanding on the research on “stereotype threat” in which situational awareness of others’ stereotypical beliefs about a person’s competence in some area, which can lower that person’s performance on tasks and interfere with their learning, her research focuses on stereotype management. Stereotype management describes a range of the strategies and various forms of individual agency that Black high-achieving STEM college students employ to reduce the impact of demeaning mostly racial stereotypes while maintaining high standards of achievement.
Kellie Owens, MA
Research Associate
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Kellie Owens is a PhD Student in Sociology and Science Studies at Northwestern University. Her research interests include the sociology of biomedicine, knowledge production and expertise, and gender. Her Master’s project examines evidence production in complementary and alternative medicine. Kellie is excited to be working with SCRDG and the biomedical community to help improve diversity in the sciences.
Bhoomi K. Thakore, PhD
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Bhoomi K. Thakore joined the SCRDG team in July 2012, and brings experience in both community-based participatory action research and in-depth ethnographic methods. Bhoomi looks forward to betting understanding the challenges faced by students from underrepresented groups in the biomedical sciences, and identifying the extent to which race, ethnicity, gender, and cultural capital inform and influence the retention of these students in biomedical fields today. Bhoomi completed her PhD in Sociology in 2012 at Loyola University Chicago. Broadly, her research interests include race and ethnic relations, culture and popular culture, racial attitudes, and racial microaggressions.
Veronica Womack, PhD
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Veronica Womack is a social psychologist whose work centers on the cultural determinants of coping strategy preferences for social stressors with a focus on racial microaggressions. Veronica also studies the effects of mind-body wellness (i.e. mindfulness) on stress management and health behaviors among young adults. She received her Ph.D. in Psychology from Howard University and her Postdoctoral training in Cardiovascular Epidemiology and Prevention from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. She joined SCRDG in 2014, with an interest in the motivational and identity-based factors of interpersonal relationships and career-oriented decisions among biomedical science students.