Executive Committee
The Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) is governed by an Executive Committee consisting of the President, President-elect or Past President, Treasurer, Clerk, Newsletter Editor and Associate Editor, Meetings Coordinator, Media Coordinator and eight At-Large Members. Members of the Executive Committee (EC) are either elected or appointed by the President.
Raegan Higgins
Texas Tech University
A Louisiana native, Higgins earned her bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Xavier University of Louisiana and her master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln. She is a professor of mathematics at Texas Tech University, where she has been a faculty member since 2008. Her primary research focuses on oscillation criteria for dynamic equations on time scales (nonempty subsets of the real numbers). Recently, Higgins began studying applications of time scales to prostate cancer.
Because of her experiences pursuing a STEM graduate degree at a PWI, Higgins understands the importance of creating supportive environments where underrepresented students can thrive. As a result, she continues to build STEM pipelines for young people through teaching and mentoring. At Texas Tech, Higgins is the lead PI of the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) Bridges Across Texas Alliance, a two-million-dollar National Science Foundation grant focusing on increasing the number of underrepresented minorities who earn associate and baccalaureate STEM degrees at the five alliance institutions.
At Texas Tech, she is an Integrated Scholar and a member of their Teaching Academy. Additionally, Higgins is an Assistant Vice Provost of Faculty Success. In her role, Higgins develops initiatives, programs, and opportunities specific to inclusion and equity, mentorship, and professional development, and she helps implement reviews of and changes to current policies and procedures that faculty have identified as barriers to advancement.
Nationally, she is a co-director of the Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education (EDGE) Program, a 2018 Presidential Award for STEM Mentoring recipient, and 2007 AMS Mathematics Programs that Make a Difference recipient. She participated in the EDGE Summer Session in 2002 as a student and later served as a workshop facilitator for several years before moving into her current role. Additionally, Higgins is a co-founder and co-creator of the website Mathematically Gifted and Black, which highlights the contributions and lives of Black mathematicians who have significantly contributed to research, mentoring, and teaching in the mathematical sciences.
Higgins is an AWM Fellow, a recipient of the AWM Gweneth Humphreys Award for Mentoring, a recipient of the AWM Service Award, an associated editor of “La Matematica,” and a recipient of the Texas Section of the Mathematical Association of America Ron Barnes Distinguished Service to Students Award.
Cristina Villalobos
University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Dr. Villalobos holds the Myles and Sylvia Aaronson endowed professorship in the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (SMSS) at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Her research areas lie in optimization, optimal control, and STEM education. From 2024-2025, she was interim Dean of the Honors College where she introduced new honors programs and initiatives, such as a summer undergraduate research program based on her prior experience directing programs for STEM students. From 2019-2024, she served as Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives and Institutional Effectiveness in the College of Sciences reviewing assessment for its degree programs and initiating the Digital21 program that provided tablets and professional development to faculty and students for effective online teaching given the institution’s distributed campuses. Dr. Villalobos served as Interim Director of SMSS from 2015-2017 transitioning the school with 75 faculty through the first two years of UTRGV’s consolidation from UT-Brownsville and UT-Pan American. She increased the numbers of Latino and women tenure-track faculty by 33%, changed the direction of the proposed doctoral program making it more interdisciplinary, and introduced collaborative problem-solving sessions in a subset of courses.
Since 2011, she has served as Founding Director of the Center of Excellence in STEM Education, which provides resources for the academic, career, and professional development of students and outreach to the community. For over 15 years, she served as the site director on an NSF LSAMP grant, and she currently serves as the education coordinator of an NSF PREM grant. She also serves as associate director of the Regional Science and Engineering Fair, a prelude to the Regeneron competition, for K-12 students. Dr. Villalobos has served on advisory boards for various organizations and higher education institutions, including two National Academies committees.
In recognition of her national service for student/faculty mentoring and STEM leadership, she was awarded the 2020 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring. She is also a recipient of the Gweneth Humphrey’s Award from the AWM, UT System Board of Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award, SACNAS Distinguished Undergraduate Institution Mentor Award, and the Richard A. Tapia Achievement Award for Scientific Scholarship, Civic Science, and Diversifying Computing. In 2023, she was elected Fellow of the American Mathematical Society; she is also a Ford Foundation Fellow and Sloan Fellow. Dr. Villalobos was born and raised in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, is a first-generation college graduate, and received her B.S in Mathematics from UT-Austin and her Ph.D. in Computational and Applied Mathematics from Rice University.
Mary Shepherd
Northwest Missouri State University
Mary Shepherd is Professor of Mathematics at Northwest Missouri State University where she has been since 2001. Currently, she is on sabbatical and is a Visiting Professor at Arizona State University. Her research interests started in differential geometry and have continued into undergraduate mathematics education, particularly in reading mathematics where she has several publications. She has also worked in mathematics as created in needlework where she has chapters in three books. She earned an undergraduate degree in music performance (clarinet) from Missouri State University in 1976, a Masters of Accountancy from the University of Oklahoma in 1987 and a Masters and PhD in Mathematics from Washington University in St. Louis in 1996. She initially taught at SUNY–Potsdam from 1996 to 2001. She is a Project NExT fellow (Peach Dot–1997) and helped found the Missouri Section NExT program. She has been Secretary/Treasurer, Chair, and Governor/Section Representative of the Missouri Section of the MAA. She has also served on the EC of the MAA as the Budget and Audit member (2008–2010) and after reorganization of the MAA EC, continued to serve as the appointed person on the Audit Committee of the Board of Governors until 2018. Mary is currently a member of the CTUM Committee of the MAA and was involved with the writing and publication of the Instructional Practices Guide of the MAA. Prior to returning to school to pursue mathematics, she was an accountant at various private companies, most recently at Hertz Rent-A-Car. She passed the CPA exam in 1987.
May Mei
Denison University
May Mei is a professor of mathematics at Denison University, as well as the department chair. She received her BA from the University of California, Berkeley, and her PhD from the University of California, Irvine. Her research involves the application of dynamical systems to mathematical physics. She has also worked on integer sequences and Happy Numbers, cellular automata, the epistemology and cognitive science of mathematics, and modeling mollusk growth. On campus, in addition to being an engaged and enthusiastic instructor who treats teaching as a craft, and hones her pedagogy intentionally, May is active in shared campus governance and has served as chair of the faculty. In the mathematics community, May chairs the Mathematical Association of America’s Committee on Program Review and she is co-PI on a grant to transform the way departments engage in program review by creating new training structures, supporting follow-up actions, and documenting strategies for enacting change.
Dandrielle Lewis
Prairie View A & M University
Lakeshia Legette Jones
Clark Atlanta University
Lakeshia Legette Jones is an associate professor of mathematics at Clark Atlanta University (CAU) in Atlanta, GA. She received her master’s degree and PhD in mathematics from Howard University and a second master’s degree in mathematical finance from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Her research area is topology, with interests in using topological data analysis to address social issues.
She enjoys working with and mentoring students of color and being a gateway to opportunities, information, and resources. She previously served as the UA Little Rock Campus Director of the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program, which is funded by the National Science Foundation to support the academic enrichment of underrepresented students in STEM majors. She also received the inaugural Black Educator Award from Top Hat, which provides a platform for interactive, engaging, and personalized teaching and learning. She is a member of several of the major mathematical organizations, including the National Association of Mathematicians (NAM) and she serves on the editorial boards of the Mathematical Association of America’s Math Values Blog and Math Horizons Magazine.
Kimberly Ayers
California State University, San Marcos
Kimberly Ayers is an Assistant Professor at California State University San Marcos. She holds a PhD from Iowa State University and a BA in mathematics from Bowdoin College. Her research is in the areas of dynamical systems and ergodic theory. In addition to her work with the AWM, Dr. Ayers serves on the board of the SoCal-Nevada MAA Section and is an active member of the American Mathematical Society and Spectra, the professional organization for queer mathematicians. She is passionate about making the field of mathematics accessible and equitable to all.
Keisha Cook 
Clemson University
Keisha Cook is an assistant professor in the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences at Clemson University. She received a bachelors degree in applied mathematics from the University of Alabama in 2014 and a PhD in applied mathematics and computational biology from the University of Alabama in 2019. She also completed a postdoctoral research position at Tulane University at the NSF-Simons Southeast Center for Mathematics and Biology. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on stochastic processes, with applications in single particle tracking, intracellular transport, and mathematical modeling across the fields of bioengineering, biophysics, and forestry. Her work in the mathematics community has been recognized, as she is a 2025 recipient of The Mary Beth Ruskai Research Fund for Women, an editor and reviewer of the AWM Research Symposium Proceedings, and a MAA Section Lecturer. Cook is the first Clemson University professor to receive a Gilliam Fellowship, supporting a minority PhD student in the sciences. She is a 2024 University of Alabama Graduate School Centennial Scholar Award recipient. At Clemson University, she serves as the AWM Student Chapter co-advisor. She enjoys fitness, travel, and fine dining.
Amanda Folsom
Amherst College
Amanda L. Folsom is the Bicentennial Professor of Mathematics at Amherst College, where she served as Department Chair or Associate Chair from 2019–2021 and 2023–2025. She received her BA in 2001 from the University of Chicago, and her PhD in 2006 from UCLA. Prior to joining the Amherst faculty in 2014, Folsom held positions at Yale, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the Max Planck Institute, and she is a former member of the IAS. Folsom is the recipient of NSF grants including an NSF Career Award (2013–2019). She was named a Simons Fellow in Mathematics (2018–2019), and received the AMS Mary P. Dolciani Prize for Excellence in Research (2021).
Folsom has published numerous mathematics research and expository articles, and coauthored a research-level book on Harmonic Maass Forms published by the AMS. She advised a math PhD student and dozens of undergraduate math research students from Amherst and Yale, resulting in coauthored publications with her students. Folsom has twice served as a research project co-leader for Women in Number Theory (WIN5 2020 and WIN4 2017) also leading to coauthored publications, and served as coeditorc for AWM Research Directions in Number Theory: Women in Numbers IV. Folsom’s mathematics talks include an MAA Invited Address at the 2019 JMM.
Folsom serves on several professional committees including AMS Committee on Meetings and Conferences; AMS Levi L. Conant Prize Committee; MAA Committee on Invited Paper Sessions; American Institute of Mathematics (AIM) Scientific Research Board. She also serves on the editorial boards of mathematics journals including Proceedings of the AMS where she is the incoming Managing Editor, and La Matematica, the official journal of the AWM.
Monica Jackson
American University
Monica Jackson is the Deputy Provost and Dean of Faculty at American University in Washington, DC. She is also a professor of mathematics and statistics. Dr. Jackson has been at American since 2005. She established AU’s first Summer Program in Research and Learning, where undergraduate students and faculty from across the country conduct scientific research at AU. She has served as associate dean of undergraduate studies in the College of Arts and Sciences, as CAS’s first diversity, equity, and inclusion officer. She is also a principal investigator for AU’s ADVANCE grant, analyzing gender and racial data and working to increase equity in these areas among STEM faculty.
Her current research interest is in the areas of spatial statistics and disease surveillance with applications to developing, investigating methods for detecting cancer clusters, global clustering patterns, and developing simulation algorithms for spatially correlated data. Dr. Jackson has spent sabbaticals at the National Cancer Institute, Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics at UCLA, and Statistical and Applied Mathematical Sciences Institute, where she worked on applying her spatial techniques to a wide variety of medical problems. She has won numerous awards for her scholarship and service. Those include the Frederick Douglass Distinguished Scholars Faculty Fellow, The Delta Kappa Gamma International Educational Society Most Valuable Member, and the Morton Bender Prize for outstanding research. Prior to coming to AU, Dr. Jackson was a postdoctoral researcher at Emory University and an instructor at the University of Maryland. She has a BS and MS from Clark Atlanta University, and a PhD in applied mathematics and scientific computation from the University of Maryland.
Gizem Karaali
Pomona College
Gizem Karaali is professor of mathematics at Pomona College. She is a founding editor of Journal of Humanistic Mathematics and a senior editor of Numeracy, the journal of the National Numeracy Network. Karaali has published over a hundred articles as well as four edited volumes; most recently she edited, with Lily Khadjavi, the 2021 MAA Press book Mathematics and Social Justice: Focusing on Quantitative Reasoning and Statistics, which followed a 2019 book titled Mathematics and Social Justice: Resources for the College Classroom. In the last decade, Karaali received federal grants for her research and teaching (from the National Security Agency and the National Endowment for the Humanities).
Emille Davie Lawrence
University of San Francisco
Emille Davie Lawrence is Senior Director for the Black Achievement Success and Engagement initiative and associate professor at the University of San Francisco. She earned her B.S. in mathematics from Spelman College and her Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Georgia. She has also been a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara and an Assistant Professor at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. Her research focuses on topological properties of spatial graphs. She has been recognized for her work in the mathematics community including as the 2021 Association for Women in Mathematics Service Award winner, as a recipient of the 2021 Karen EDGE Fellowship for mid-career mathematicians, and also as a 2022 MAA Euler Book Prize winner.
Rosa Orellana
Dartmouth College
Rosa Orellana is a professor of Mathematics at Dartmouth College, where she was awarded the John M. Manley Huntington Award for research, teaching, and mentoring. She was a first-generation college student with a dream of becoming a teacher. With the support of many mentors and advisors, she received her Ph.D. from the University of California at San Diego. Before coming to Dartmouth, she was a President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California. Her research is in algebraic combinatorics, in particular combinatorial representation theory. Her research work is supported by the National Science Foundation.
Orellana loves mathematics and believes in supporting and encouraging everybody to discover its beauty. At Dartmouth she mentors and supervises graduate students, postdocs and undergraduate students. In particular, she enjoys introducing undergraduates to the joys of research and has mentored many undergraduate students. In 2013, she was the research director for MSRI-UP REU, leading 18 undergraduates in research projects. Orellana first became interested in mathematics in seventh grade; therefore, she started an annual Sonia Kovalevsky Math Day at Dartmouth to encourage middle and high school girls discover math beyond the classroom.
Giving back to the community is something that Orellana finds very rewarding. Most recently, she was elected to the AMS council as a member-at-large and served until 2023. Currently, she serves in several committees at the AMS and MAA.
Omayra Ortega
Sonoma State University
Omayra Y. Ortega, PhD, is an associate professor of applied mathematics & Statistics at Sonoma State University. She earned dual bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and music from Pomona College and went on to complete a master’s degree in public health, as well as an MS and PhD in applied mathematics and computational sciences at the University of Iowa. Her research focuses on mathematical epidemiology and computational biology, and she founded the Mathematical Epidemiology Research Group (MERG) to mentor undergraduates in modeling infectious disease dynamics. A dedicated advocate for equity in STEM, she has organized Sonia Kovalevsky Days since 2006, served on the AWM Mentor Committee since 2009, helped create the first deck of EvenQuads, and organized the 2018 AWM Research Symposium at Rice University. Dr. Ortega also served as president of the National Association of Mathematicians (2021–2024) and was named an AWM Fellow in 2023 for her mentorship, outreach, and service to the mathematics community.
Julia Plavnik
Indiana University
Julia is an Argentinian mathematician who earned her PhD from Universidad Nacional de Córdoba in 2013. She held postdoctoral positions in Córdoba and Buenos Aires, and at Texas A&M University, where she had amazing mentors. Currently, she is the Charlotte Ann Griffin Associate Professor of Mathematics at Indiana University (Bloomington) and holds a part-time appointment at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Julia has also held visiting positions at CRM and MSRI for thematic programs, and at Universität Hamburg as a Humboldt Research Fellow.
Her research focuses on quantum symmetries, particularly quantum algebra and quantum topology. She works on tensor categories and noncommutative algebras, such as Hopf algebras, and is especially interested in their applications in different areas of mathematics and physics. Julia is currently supported by an NSF CAREER grant, and she is part of the Simons Collaboration on Global Categorical Symmetries. She serves on the editorial boards of a couple of journals and is currently on the Editorial Committee for the 2025 AWM Research Symposium Proceedings. Julia is dedicated to mentoring at all levels (from high school to postdoctoral), for which she was recognized at her home institution with the 2022 CEWIT Outstanding Faculty Mentor/Advocate Award. Julia is also the faculty advisor of the (undergraduate) Women in Math Club, the Peer Mentoring Initiative, and the AWM Chapter at IU.