Espy-Wilson Selected For New ADVANCE Program

Prof. Carol Espy-Wilson (ECE/ISR) has been selected for the position of ADVANCE Professor in the A. James Clark School Of Engineering.

Prof. Espy-Wilson will serve as the ADVANCE Professor for Women Faculty of Color in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and will work alongside Prof. Alison Flatau, another ADVANCE Professor in the Clark School. Prof. Espy-Wilson's new appointment begins in spring of 2011.

The ADVANCE Program for Inclusive Excellence aims to transform the institutional culture of our University by facilitating networks, offering individual mentoring and support, and offering information and strategic opportunities for women faculty in all areas of academia. Through initiatives funded from a five year, multi-million dollar grant from the National Science Foundation, the ADVANCE Program aims to produce academic environments with assumptions, values and beliefs, policies and practices that support and generate professional growth and excellence for all faculty.

The University of Maryland (UMD) proposes to invest in the long-term professional growth of women in science and engineering. The ADVANCE project offers a new way to conceive of and address the national problem of retention among STEM academic women, and offers institutional leaders a new way of framing the need to transform their environments to ensure they truly achieve inclusive excellence.

Prof. Espy-Wilson received her B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1979. She received her M.S., E.E. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from MIT in 1981, 1984 and 1987, respectively. She was on faculty at Boston University from 1990 to 2001 and is Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Maryland, College Park. She directs the Speech Communication Lab at UMD.

Published February 3, 2011