Sara Brownell
2023 Charter Professor
President’s Professor
School of Life Sciences
Brownell is a President’s Professor in the School of Life Sciences and director of the Research for Inclusive STEM Education (RISE) Center. Her research focuses on inclusive excellence in undergraduate STEM education, attending to strategies to promote student success across a range of intersectional identities and lived experiences. Brownell is an internationally recognized scholar, having received multiple national research awards related to science education and six ASU teaching and mentoring awards. She has been described by Dean Kenro Kusumi as “[changing] the conversation around teaching at ASU … she works tirelessly to make the student experience better, with a particular focus on marginalized students, so that ASU as a whole will be better.” As an ASU Charter Professor, Brownell plans to expand the reach and impact of her RISE Ambassadors program. Launched in spring 2023, RISE Ambassadors work to translate research from the RISE Center into actionable and inclusive practices in teaching and research spaces across STEM programs at ASU and beyond.
