2021 GAINS Leadership Conference

Dr. Valerie Jones Taylor

Dr. Taylor is an Assistant Professor of Psychology and Africana Studies at Lehigh University. Her research areas include intergroup relations, social identity threat, stereotyping and discrimination, and cultural psychology. Dr. Taylor has been awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER grant to explore the effectiveness of using virtual reality as a tool to combat negative interracial interactions and, ultimately, transform the culture of STEM. Through laboratory experiments and a longitudinal field study, Taylor and her team plan to test the efficacy of examining STEM-related interracial interactions in virtual reality compared to real-life interactions; identify the number and type of virtual reality interracial contact necessary to improve racial attitudes and behavior in STEM; and, examine whether repeated virtual reality interracial contact leads to improved intergroup relations and increased racial and ethnic minority representation in STEM. Read about her use of virtual reality here!

Dr. Lopez-Uribe will join our bee panel to discuss her work with bees. 

Dr. Lopez-Uribe is the Lorenzo L. Langstroth Early Career Professor, Assistant Professor of Entomology.  

Declines in bee populations worldwide have raised concerns about the environmental and economic consequences of pollination loss in natural and human-dominated ecosystems. I am interested in understanding how environmental change (e.g. land use, climate) and management (e.g. beekeeping practices) drive changes in population demography and health of wild and managed bee species. My ultimate goal is to contribute with informed strategies for conservation and restoration of bee populations and the ecosystem services they provide.

Dr. Heather Lee-Grab will join our bee panel. 

Dr. Grab is currently a USDA NIFA Postdoctoral Research Fellow working with Dr. Katja Poveda at Cornell University.

Dr. Grab is broadly interested in understanding how environmental changes and species' traits affect the community composition and persistence of insects that provide important agricultural ecosystem services, including wild bees and natural enemies of crop pests. She integrates large-scale field experiments with methods from landscape ecology, community ecology, and phylogenetics to understand patterns in community variation and to reveal their consequences for crop productivity.  Heather is active in extension and outreach and has taught multiple courses on quantitative methods and statistical modeling at Cornell. For more information, please visit her website, http://www.landscape-agroecology.com/.

 Dr. Christina Grozinger will join our bee panel!  

Dr. Grozinger is the Publius Vergilius Maro Professor of Entomology, 

Director, Center for Pollinator Research, Insect Biodiversity Center

Associate Director for Research, Institute for Sustainable Agricultural, Food and Environmental Science

Dr Grozinger's lab at Penn State has two main areas of study, which examine the mechanisms underlying social behavior and health in honey bees and related species.  Our studies on social behavior seek to elucidate the proximate and ultimate mechanisms that regulate behavioral variation and plasticity in insect societies, in particular focusing on complex chemical communication systems.  Our studies on bee health examine how biotic and abiotic stressors impact the individual at the molecular, physiological and behavioral level, how these individual effects lead to colony-level changes, and how responses to these stressors can be modulated by social and environmental contexts.  We use an integrative approach encompassing genomics, epigenetics, physiology, neurobiology, behavior, chemical ecology, and ecology.  

Candice Koseba is the founder of Sonoma County Bee Company. She will host a guided blind honey tasting (virtual!). Test your palate and honey knowledge with a taste of Sonoma County Bee Company’s wildflower honey, along with a side-by-side tasting of 4 mono-varietal honeys. Candice will guide the group with the Honey Tasting Flavor Wheel and Honey Color Guide that comes with this virtual tasting box. Learn about honey aromas, flavors, and what it’s like to be a beekeeper.

Sonoma County Bee Company’s honey is made of real flower nectar collected by real bees, made in small batches. 10% of honey sales are donated to the Sonoma County Beekeepers Association, whose mission is to have a thriving and sustainable bee population in Sonoma County. Candice Koseba is also the on-site beekeeper at the new Montage Healdsburg.

Dr. Guenther is a resident in the Department of Pediatrics, Boston Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts

Dr. Cara Guenther is a pediatric resident in the Boston Combined Residency Program. She earned a B.A. in anthropology with a minor in global health and health policy from Harvard University. She earned an M.D. from Boston University School of Medicine where she was inducted into the AOA and Gold Humanism Honor Societies and received the Pauline Millstein Family Fund Award. Her research areas include screening for social determinants of health, risk factors for restraint use in the emergency room, and reducing morbidity and mortality in children with sickle cell disease.