Courtney Ngai
Equity Coach
Pronouns (she/her)
Degrees
PhD in Chemistry Education (UMass Boston)
Professional Biography
Dr. Courtney Ngai is currently the Associate Director of the Office for Undergraduate Research and Artistry at Colorado State University and also serves in facilitator, program evaluator, and advisor roles as a consultant. Her background is in chemistry, and she spent the early years of her career collaborating with instructors and researchers to better understand student thinking and problem solving within chemistry contexts. She transitioned to facilitating and studying organizational change in higher education with the intention of supporting students’ experiences in STEMM fields. Dr. Ngai has facilitated several teams engaging in efforts to improve undergraduate education and she has studied the short and long-term impacts of these projects. She has published a book, peer-reviewed writing, and several virtual workshops on the process and insights from this work. She now serves in an advisory role to other groups seeking to catalyze change in their higher education contexts.
Certifications/Licensures
Specializations
Courtney specializes in DEIJ work within the context of higher education, particularly within STEMM disciplines. She has experience working as a facilitator for academic units that are focused on DEIJ change projects. Her research is grounded in critical and inclusive frameworks, such as critical race theory, transformative learning theory, and community cultural wealth theory, and her current work centers those who have been historically excluded in STEMM fields due to ethnicity and/or race.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice moment of celebration
A moment I would like to celebrate in my DEIJ work was when I was awarded funding to investigate the experiences of those historically excluded in chemistry due to ethnicity and/or race. This work will examine the current culture within chemistry and elevate the stories of those who are historically excluded, especially the strengths that they contribute to the field.
Connect with Courtney at courtney@empoweredconsult.com.
More from Courtney
