Meet The Team

Monica’s STEM journey began with her love for patterns as a child and her love for playing with science at the Exploratorium. She also worked on math proofs during informal “kitchen conversations” with her dad. As an undergraduate, she majored in mathematics and minored in English. She then spent time teaching physical education to preschoolers, substitute teaching math and science at a middle school, tutoring high students and adults in English as a Second Language, and tutoring technical college students in math and ESL as part of the AmeriCorps program.

She is committed to pursuing and promoting racial justice, equity, and dignity but recognizes she still has much to learn. Monica’s research and teaching interests focus on engineering design, mathematical thinking, and computational thinking across formal and informal settings. She is particularly interested in human-centered approaches to design. Monica is also interested in what we can learn from parents and families about the ways that they support learning and engagement in engineering and other STEM activities.

She has investigated this through studies of practicing professionals, undergraduate students and educators, middle school students, elementary school teachers and students, and children and families, primarily through video analysis and open-ended interviews. This work is done in partnership, most recently with colleagues from Purdue, Imagination Station of Lafayette, the National Society for Black Engineers, TERC, University of Iowa, University of Notre Dame, University of Washington, Virginia Tech, and several elementary schools.

Professor Andres Tremante has been the deputy director of the CELL-MET and PATHS-UP Culture of Inclusion & Diversity Thrust Areas. Dr. Tremante also serves as the Principal Investigator on the NSF Florida Georgia Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (FGLSAMP), the National Action Council for Minority Engineers (NACME), the Children’s Trust funded FIU ENLACE project, and the Florida Action for Minorities in Engineering (FLAME).

Professor Tremante received his Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in Mechanical Engineering from “Universidad Simon Bolivar” and his Doctoral degree from “Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Arts et Métiers” in Energy Conversion and Transportation. He joined FIU in 2008 after 25 years of experience in Europe and Latin America, mostly in academia and the oil industry, and he is also a Teaching Professor in the Mechanical and Materials Engineering (MME) Department. He brings forward a long record of teaching, scholarly research, academic service, and strong credentials for leadership as the director of CD-SSEC.

Stephen Secules is an Assistant Professor in the School of Universal Computing, Construction, and Engineering Education (SUCCEED) and the STEM Transformation Institute. He teaches a core course on Foundations of Engineering and Computing Education to the PhD students in the SUCCEED cohort. He also runs an Equity Research Group where members engage in weekly discussions and independent equity research. He is the lead investigator for our Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Ambassador program where he provides training in research methods, educational design, and leadership to our undergraduate student ambassadors.