it's Nita.

Anita Patrick, Ph.D. received her B.S. in Bioengineering (2012) from Clemson University, where she tutored and mentored undergraduate students in the College of Engineering and Science. Through this and subsequent independent tutoring experiences after graduation, she developed a passion for helping individuals achieve their goals in STEM. She is presently a College of Education Doctoral Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin and will be awarded her doctorate in STEM Education in May 2020. 

In the course of her graduate studies, she received several honors, including a Graduate Recruitment Fellowship (2014), Honorable Mention NSF GRFP (2016), and Continuing Dissertation Fellowship from the College of Education (2019). In contributing to scholarly work, Dr. Patrick published 10 peer-reviewed journal articles including a 5 first-author publications. Additionally, she published over 15 conference papers in proceedings including the American Society for Engineering Annual Conference & Exposition, American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, Biomedical Engineering Society Annual Meeting, and the international Research in Engineering Education Symposium. 

Dr. Patrick values interdisciplinary work and research collaborations. Her dissertation derived from an NSF funded research grant on which she was a contributing proposal author and primary graduate researcher. Her work addressed gender differences in post-graduation plans among undergraduate biomedical engineering students with particular focus on the novel use of cluster analysis and structural equation modeling to explore career decision-making and motivating attitudinal beliefs. As an outcome of this work, her goal is to educate the public and practitioners on what it means to be an engineer and to develop holistic frameworks for identity development, student motivation, and decision-making to help women and underrepresented minorities pursue their goals in engineering including graduate and professional school. 

In addition to research, Dr. Patrick was the primary evaluator for the Texas BME Community of Undergraduate Research Scholars for Cancer, a summer NSF REU program, for two years. She has also served as a peer reviewer for the Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (JPEER), Journal of Engineering Education (JEE), Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering (JWM), European Journal of Engineering Education (EJEE), Studies in Engineering Education (SEE) and International Journal of STEM Education (IJSTEM).