Principal Investigator

Dr. Grimes is a Research Associate Professor in the Center for Marine & Environmental Studies at the University of the Virgin Islands. Her research examines human impacts to nearshore environments, especially mangroves.

At UVI, she teaches in the Masters of Marine & Environmental Science program, mentors students, and engages the community through outreach and education, running the Mangroves in the Classroom project and the territory-wide Great Mangrove Cleanups.

Dr. Grimes is deeply committed to increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion in the geosciences and leads the NSF Includes SEAS Islands Alliance, a $10M National Science Foundation-funded network that supports students from middle school through to the workforce in the marine and environmental sciences from the USVI, Puerto Rico, and Guam. She is also the Director for the Virgin Islands Water Resources Research Institute, a network of 54 institutes across the US in partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey.

Co-Principal Investigator

Dr. McSween-Missole is an Assistant Professor of Biology at the University of the Virgin Islands. She serves as the Director of the Mentoring and Research Infrastructure Component in the Virgin Islands Institute for STEM Education Research and Practice funded by NSF EPSCOR.

Her current research focuses on characterization of institutional support structures at HBCUs that facilitate entry of STEM learners into the STEM workforce, and retention of STEM professionals in STEM career fields. Her service efforts focus on broadening early career faculty participation in STEM education, and promoting early career scholarship, productivity, and socialization into the academy and facilitating professional development training for undergraduate research trainees through the Emerging Caribbean Scientists Program. She also serves as co- PI on an NIH funded training and workforce development grant, Undergraduate Research Training Initiative for Student Enhancement (U-RISE).

External Evaluator

Dr. Peterman received her Ph.D. in psychology from Duke University in 2002, and has applied those skills to the field of STEM education and communication ever since. She started doing independent consulting work in 2007 and founded Karen Peterman Consulting, Co. (KPC) in 2010, with a focus on STEM education. KPC became Catalyst Consulting Group in 2022.

External Evaluator

Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Emily is passionate about program evaluation. With a master's degree in educational research and evaluation from the University of Puerto Rico and another in public policy evaluation from the University of Seville, she has honed her skills to improve programs and projects. Since 2023, Emily has contributed to Catalyst Consulting Group, where she collaborates on enhancing STEM environments in island communities like Guam, the US Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. She also advises private clients on business and technological optimization, driven by her commitment to data-driven strategies and innovation.

Founding Principal Investigator

Dr. Lawanda Cummings is a Community Organizational Psychologist with research focused on community mentoring initiatives and school support structures that promote academic and psychological development among ethnic or gender minority students. She has over a decade of work and experience in STEM education interventions and workforce development in the Caribbean and Southeastern United States.  She is a founding principal investigator.

Dr. Cummings worked as HBCU faculty and staff at Paine College and the University of the Virgin Islands. She was awarded an NSF grant for $346, 000 to investigate the educational processes associated with African American women’s inclusion in STEM career fields and a SAMHSA grant for $877,000 (Paine College: Informing, Developing and Educating through Active Learning; PC: IDEAL) to address HIV/HCV and Substance Abuse prevention among 18–24-year-olds in the CSRA.   At the University of the Virgin Islands,  she led the STEM education and workforce development component of the Virgin Islands Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (VI-EPSCoR) grant focusing on STEM teacher professional development and structures of support for STEM students and early-career faculty. Dr. Cummings was also the Director of the Florida-Caribbean Louis Stokes Regional Center for Excellence (FL-C LSAMP), which developed customized mindset interventions to promote URM inclusion in STEM.

Dr. Cummings has transitioned to Georgia State University as the executive director of the Alonzo A. Crim Center for Urban Educational Excellence (https://crim.education.gsu.edu/) in the College of Education and Human Development. There she continues her research and building programs for equitable access to STEM education for urban and minoritized populations.