Kelly J. Cross

Empathy and Excellence are core components of all my work as a researcher and scholar for supporting difficult conversations in engineering. Specifically, highlighting disparate student experiences across various marginalized groups. For example, I have published on challenges unique to women of color in engineering and used an intersectional framework. Empathy is included in my research by emphasizing participant voices that critique the culture rather than blame students. I amplify the voice of marginalized groups in two projects focused on women of color (Grant # 1900530) and studying the LGBTQ+ identified in STEM (Grant # 1748473). Also, empathy is the motive for my work on the NSF CAREER project (Grant # 2145884) where I supplement the lack of official training or professional development opportunities regarding inclusivity and student success for engineering faculty. 

Finally, I intentionally strive for excellence in my research and scholarship by constantly emphasizing aspects of research quality with collaborators (N=25) and students (N=30). As a result, my paper on African American males (Cross et al., 2020) is an exemplar for qualitative research and the phenomenological methodology in engineering. My paper on undergraduate student stress in the Journal of Engineering Education (JEE), is an exemplar of addressing aggregating or disaggregating underrepresented groups in quantitative research.