About Us

The STEM Diversity Institute (SDI) owes its formation and institutionalization to the major achievements of the Northeast Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (NEAGEP), a NSF-funded project begun in 1999.  Under NEAGEP, the number of underrepresented minority earning doctorates at the University of Massachusetts Amherst nearly doubled  by 2010.

To leverage those successes, the SDI engages stakeholders at all levels to promote institutional change, to create mutually beneficial partnerships, to work to develop talent, to provide a nurturing environment, and to build on our achievements by using data-driven strategies. 

Because the University of Massachusetts recognizes that sustainable academic and research excellence requires a diverse faculty, the SDI will work both to increase the number of URM and women who obtain Ph.D. degrees and enter the professoriate, and  work to increase the number of women, particularly URM women in STEM faculty departments at UMass Amherst.  The SDI will provide a comprehensive set of programs to recruit, retain, and advance  under-represented minorities and women of the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce. 

The STEM Diversity Institute is housed under the auspices of the Office of the Provost and under the direct leadership of Dr. Sandra Petersen, executive director and professor of veterinary and animal science.  Its administrative offices will initially be housed in the Graduate School and it will liaise and work with the Graduate School, the Colleges of Engineering and Natural Sciences, the School of Public Health, and all STEM departments and graduate programs.