Phillip J. Bowman is a Professor of Higher Education at the University of Michigan where he is also Director of the Diversity Research and Policy Program (DRPP) and Faculty Associate at the Institute for Social Research.  DRPP was launched in 2008 with funding from the National Institutes of Health while Bowman was Founding Director of the National Center for Institutional Diversity (2006-2013), a national think-tank for bridging innovative scholarship with policy-relevant social change.  Since 2013, the DRPP priorities have continued to evolve through strategic alliances between the School of Education, Institute for Social Research and other stakeholders at UM and beyond.  As a theoretical and applied social psychologist, Bowman’s scholarship focuses on higher education, racial/ethnic diversity, and related public policy issues (e.g. workforce inequalities, urban family poverty, health disparities and social justice); he has a growing interest in multilevel strengths-based intervention strategies to reduce inequalities, disparities and opportunity gaps.  Professor Bowman teaches several related courses including Race, Ethnicity and Gender in Higher Education; Diversity, Merit and Higher Education; and Strengths-Based STEM Pipeline Interventions. Prior to 2006, Bowman served as Director of the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy with the University of Illinois at Chicago and also as a Professor in Psychology, African American Studies and Educational Policy Studies with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. At Northwestern University for a decade, Professor Bowman held numerous leadership roles as Professor of Education, Human Development, Social Policy and African American Studies including Faculty Fellow with the Institute for Policy Research, Faculty Affiliate with the Joint Center for Poverty Research, Co-Coordinator of the Spencer Training Grant in Education and Social Policy, Director of the Summer Academic Workshop, Director of the Social-Behavioral Science Scholars Program, Chair of the Graduate Program in Counseling Psychology, and Chair of the Department of African American Studies. He has been a Rockefeller and Senior Ford Postdoctoral Fellow and serves as a national and international consultant on policy-relevant diversity issues.  His research has been supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Spencer Foundation, state agencies, and several federal agencies, including the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Bowman received his Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the University of Michigan where he began his professional career as an Assistant Research Scientist at the Institute for Social Research and Assistant Professor in Psychology and Afroamerican and African Studies.

Angela Ebreo, PhD, is an Associate Research Scientist at the University of Michigan’s Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education.  From 2007 until 2013, she served as Assistant Director for Research and Training in UM’s National Center for Institutional Diversity.  Currently, Dr. Ebreo is the lead researcher for the Michigan Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation and a contributing partner for the Louis Stokes Regional Center of Excellence for the Study of STEM Interventions (LSRCE-SOSI).  A social psychologist by training, Dr. Ebreo is interested in interventions that contribute to the positive development and well-being of persons of all ages, particularly youth, young adults, and the elderly.  Prior to her position with the University of Michigan, Dr. Ebreo was the Assistant Director for Research and Training at the Institute for Race and Public Policy at the University of Illinois Chicago.  During her employment at UIC, she developed relationships with the leaders of several Asian American serving non-profit organizations, including Advancing Justice – Chicago, Alliance for Immigrant Rights and Empowermernt, CIRCA-Pintig, and the Filipino American Council of Greater Chicago. Due to her long-term interest in community development and social justice, Dr. Ebreo has maintained relationships with some of these organizations and continues to be involved in proposal development, grant writing and consulting.

Joseph Romero-Reyes is a Graduate Research Assistant for the Diversity Research and Policy Program (DRPP) at the University of Michigan (UofM). He recently earned a Masters of Arts degree in Higher Education from the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education (CSHPE) at (UofM). Born in Compton and raised in Lynwood California, cities in South Los Angeles County, Joseph is a non-traditional and first-generation student who stumbled across higher education via Compton College. He credits the resilient and warrior spirit of his community for instilling the values of persistence and hard work in overcoming societal challenges. Before (UofM) he earned his Associate of Arts degree from Compton College in Behavioral and Social Science and transferred and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Social Behavior from the University of California, Irvine (UCI). During his undergraduate career, Joseph participated in federal work-study and worked in various departments at Compton College. Through these experiences is where he found a passion for helping first-generation and low-income students access and succeed in higher and postsecondary education. Moreover, as an undergraduate student at UCI, he was exposed to academic research and collaborated with Dr. Jeanett Castellanos conducting an Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) qualitative study examining the Psychosociocultural factors contributing to transfer attitudes by Latino males in community college. Joseph will be joining the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a doctoral student and pursue a Ph.D. in the Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis (ELPA) program with a concentration in Higher Education. As a doctoral student, he hopes to continue studying how first-generation and low-income males of color utilize their cultural and personal strengths to overcome social and academic barriers. He is also interested in studying how community colleges can implement strong multilevel strengths-based policies that will lead to the successful retention and transfer of first-generation and low-income males of color who attend community colleges and are exposed to K-12 educational opportunity gaps.