Monica B. Mitchell

Dr. Monica B. Mitchell is the founder and President of MERAssociates (MERA), LLC, an education research and evaluation consultancy based in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. MERA specializes in STEM broadening participation throughout the educational and professional continuum. Dr. Mitchell launched MERA in response to the pressing need of coupling cultural responsiveness with content expertise in the conduct of evaluation focused on broadening STEM participation and has been described as a boundary spanner in her work with universities, school districts, industry, not-for-profits, foundations, and federal agencies. She has been the principal investigator or co-principal investigator of National Science Foundation funded grants totaling over $2,500,000 and serves on the advisory boards of several NSF-funded projects. A core commitment of MERA is to advance inclusiveness of underrepresented principal investigators and institutions of higher education in programs funded by federal agencies. Since its 2008 inception, MERA assistance has led to approximately $50 million in grants to support this aim. Prior to launching MERA, Dr. Mitchell served as a program officer at the National Science Foundation for several years and managed portfolios in the Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings, and the Division of Undergraduate Education. Dr. Mitchell regularly presents at national conferences and workshops along with a 2021 coauthored book release, Fostering Computational Thinking Among Underrepresented Students in STEM: Strategies for Supporting Racially Equitable Computing, published by Routledge. Dr. Mitchell is Affiliate Researcher with the Center for Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment (CREA), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.