Dr. Yvette E. Pearson is Associate Dean for Accreditation, Assessment, and Strategic Initiatives in the George R. Brown School of Engineering at Rice University. A Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), she is recognized for more than two decades of contributions to engineering education and research. She has provided leadership in acquiring and administering millions in funding, most of which has been for projects to improve recruitment, learning, retention, and graduation of STEM majors. One of her key focus areas is full participation of students from excluded identities – minorities, women, and persons with disabilities – in STEM education and careers.
Dr. Pearson chairs MOSAIC, ASCE’s board-level committee, which is charged with leading the Society in all matters of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) for the profession. As past vice chair of ASCE’s Committee on Diversity and Inclusion she was part of the team that authored Canon 8 of ASCE’s Code of Ethics, providing specific leadership for the principle that requires engineers to consider the diversity of the communities they serve and to include diverse perspectives in planning and performing their work. As past chair of ASCE’s Formal Engineering Education Committee she led initiatives to infuse engineering curricula with principles of sustainability and to promote strategies toward the attainment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, emphasizing targets aimed at ensuring equity for people in traditionally marginalized populations. Dr. Pearson served as Secretary of the Minorities in Engineering Division (MIND) of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) from 2018 through 2020. On behalf of MIND, she was appointed a Co-Chair of the Conference Planning Committee for the First Annual Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity (CoNECD) conference, she represented MIND as a delegate to the (former) ASEE Diversity Committee, and led groups that provided insights for making ASEE conferences more inclusive of and accessible to persons with disabilities.
Dr. Pearson is a sought-after speaker who regularly engages audiences internationally on topics at the intersections of sustainability, diversity, equity, and inclusion in engineering education and practice. Additionally, she serves as a formal and informal advisor to many groups on matters of iDEI related to accessibility for persons with disabilities. Her mission is to inspire, impel, and institutionalize change towards ubiquitous inclusion (UI) so that it becomes a universal standard of practice in engineering education and practice.
Among Dr. Pearson’s numerous awards and honors are ABET’s Claire L. Felbinger Award for Diversity and Inclusion, ASCE’s Professional Practice Ethics and Leadership Award, UT Arlington’s Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching (two-time recipient), the University of Texas Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award (the highest teaching award in the UT System), and, in 2013, recognition as one of the Top 25 Women Professors in Texas. Immediately prior to joining Rice, Dr. Pearson was a Program Director in the Division of Undergraduate Education at the National Science Foundation, where she managed a roughly $70 million award portfolio.
Originally from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Dr. Pearson holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering and an M.S. in Chemistry from Southern University, a Ph.D. in Engineering and Applied Science from The University of New Orleans, and a Graduate Certificate in Educational Research Methodology from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is a registered Professional Engineer in the State of Louisiana, a Commissioner on the Engineering Accreditation Commission (EAC) of ABET, and host of Engineering Change Podcast, which has listeners in over 30 countries on six continents.
