Beyond VU
Beyond VU: Alumni Perspectives
Join in us for Beyond VU, an interactive speaker series where students can meaningfully engage with Graduate School alumni, learn about different career paths, and gain insights into the types of leadership skills others have acquired and leveraged in their post-graduate career.
Isi Ero-Tolliver, PhD
Interim Dean of the School of Science & Associate Professor of Biology, Hampton University
Interdisciplinary Studies: Biomedical Science & Science Education, ‘12
February 4, 2021
1:00 pm – 2:00 pm
Isi Ero-Tolliver earned her B.S in Biology at Jackson State University and then completed her M.S at Jackson State University while performing her thesis research in the Life Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She attained her Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies in Biological Sciences and Science Education at Vanderbilt University. Afterwards, she continued at Vanderbilt University to complete her post-doctoral training in the Department of Medicine.
Dr. Ero-Tolliver’s current research focuses on best practices for exposure, recruitment and retention of under-represented minorities in the leaky pipeline of STEM by using model-based reasoning, CURE (Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences) authentic research experiences, and intentional mentorship. She has mentored high school and undergraduate student at the lab-bench using novel research as an engagement tool and these students have gone on to be successfully admitted to undergraduate and graduate schools, respectively. Being the benefactor of great mentorship, she is interested in how this process helps minority students attain and retain STEM identities. She has authored and co-authored papers in peer-reviewed science and education journals that include Journal of Biological Chemistry, Nature Chemical Biology, Journal of Cell Biology and Journal of Research in Science Education.
Dr. Ero-Tolliver has been awarded and managed grant funding totaling over $5 million dollars during her tenure at Hampton University. For these grants she served as the principal investigator (PI) of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program, Co-PI of the NSF (Course-based Undergraduate Research Network) CURENet2 Mobile and the Co-PI of the DoD-Funded HU Center of STEM Excellence (CESE) Scholars (SSP) Program at Hampton University.
Amongst the joys of her life are her four children and other supportive family and friends.
Bridget Hodder, MA
Author, Farrar, Straus and Giroux /Macmillan Publishers
Anthropology, ’15
March 4, 2021
12:30 pm – 1:30 pm
Bridget Hodder is the author of THE RAT PRINCE from Farrar, Straus & Giroux, a Middle-Grade fantasy “classic” and Aslan Award finalist, as well as a starred selection on the International Literacy Association’s Children’s Choice list. Her upcoming co-authored Middle Grade fantasy novel, THE BUTTON BOX, with its themes of shared Sephardic Jewish and Muslim history, has already garnered an award from the Harold Grinspoon Foundation and was chosen for the PJ Library List. Bridget began her career as an Aztec archaeologist, translating ancient Nahuatl texts to tell the stories of ancient cultures. Then she realized she had her own stories to tell.
Bridget was a History major at Mount Holyoke College and holds M.A. degrees in Archaeology and Anthropology from UCLA and Vanderbilt University. She is currently Chair of the Advisory Board for the Vanderbilt University Graduate School.