Team

Rochelle Williams Ph.D., Executive Director

Rochelle L. Williams, Ph.D. is an engineer, educator, and advocate for equitable environments in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professions. Dr. Williams comes to GFSD with 14 years of experience as a non-profit leader and champion for equity, inclusion, and justice in engineering education. In addition to her leadership abilities, Dr. Rochelle currently serves as Co-Principal Investigator on several National Science Foundation grants (totaling over $6.4M since 2020) with partners including, WEPAN, SWE, SHPE, AISES, Kennesaw State, and the Algebra Project. She also serves as the President-elect of the Women in Engineering Proactive Network (WEPAN) Board of Directors.

Dr. Rochelle previously served as the Chief Programs and Membership Officer at the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), where she was responsible for achieving the strategic outcomes of the society and for supporting the planning and implementation of programs, membership initiatives, and research. Prior to joining NSBE, Dr. Rochelle served as Project Director and Co-Principal Investigator for the ADVANCE Resource Coordination (ARC) Network with the Association for Women in Science (AWIS) and Research Scientist in the Office for Academic Affairs at Prairie View A&M University. In 2016, Rochelle was selected as a Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Fellow with the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine in Washington, DC. As a fellow, she supported the Committee on Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine on the initial phases of the study that led to the Sexual Harassment of Women: Climate, Culture, and Consequences in Academic Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report.

Having received her Bachelor of Science in physics from Spelman College and both her Master of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering and Ph.D. in Science and Mathematics Education from Southern University and A&M College, Dr. Williams intentionally works to promote the excellence and innovation at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. 

(https://www.linkedin.com/in/rochellelwilliamsphd/) (rochelle@stemfellowships.org)

Joretta Joseph, Ph.D., Program Director

Joretta Joseph, EdD has a diverse background. As a first-generation college student, Dr. Joseph attending Clark Atlanta University where she received a BA in Accounting, Howard University and attained a Master’s in Business Administration, and the University of Southern California where she earned her Doctorate in Education in Higher Education Leadership. For the last 18 years she has been the Program Administrator and Graduate Advisor at the Graduate Fellowship for STEM Diversity (formerly the National Physical Science Consortium). As a Program Director she has had the opportunity to assist graduate students pursue their academic goals in the STEM fields. She has published work on various areas of equity and diversity in higher education. Dr. Joseph has conducted research and have knowledge in the areas of culture, student
success, identity, and issues of gender equity within higher education. At various time throughout the years, she has also been and adjunct professor at a local community college and a designated 4-year HSI. In addition to her professional experiences, Dr. Joseph is a community board member of a local school. Dr. Joseph has a great appreciation for academic culture and has mentored students as they prepare to begin their academic journey. (gfsd@stemfellowships.org)

William Skinner (Board Chair)

Bill has a long decorated career in Human Resources. He has served as a VP of Human Resources at G4S Technology company, Director of Human Resources at RAND Corporation and Manager of Human Resources at Palo Alto Research Center. He received his BS in Psychology from University of Rochester (NY) and MS in Organizational Development from University of San Francisco. He has served on GFSD’s board for a long time and currently the board chair.

Dr. Kerri Blobaum

Kerri Blobaum is a materials scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a Department of Energy lab in Livermore, CA. Kerri was a National Physical Science Consortium (previous name for GFSD) fellow, with LLNL as her sponsoring employer. The opportunity provided through the NPSC/GFSC fellowship to work at LLNL as a summer student convinced Kerri that she wanted to pursue a career at LLNL after completing her PhD. Kerri returned to LLNL as a postdoc in 2001, and has been there ever since. She is now a program manager and Associate Division Leader in the Materials Science Division. Kerri has a B.A. in chemistry and mathematics from Wartburg College, a M.S. in materials science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Leana Golubchik

Leana Golubchik is the Stephen and Etta Varra Professor of Computer Science, with a joint appointment in Electrical and Computer Engineering, at USC. She also serves as the Director of the Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) program. Prior to that, she was on the faculty at the University of Maryland and Columbia University. Leana received her PhD from UCLA. Her research interests are broadly in the design and evaluation of large scale distributed systems, including hybrid clouds and data centers and their applications in data analytics, machine learning, and privacy. Leana received several awards, including the IBM Faculty Award, the NSF CAREER Award, the Okawa Foundation Award, the WTS-LA Diversity Leadership Award, the USC Remarkable Women Award, and the USC Mellon Culture of Mentoring Award. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the ACM Transactions on Modeling and Performance Evaluation of Computing Systems (TOMPECS) and on the Editorial Board of the Performance Evaluation journal as well as a member of the IFIP WG 7.3 (elected in 2000). She is a Fellow of AAAS. 

Dr. Tracie Durbin

Tracie Durbin is a Systems Research Analyst at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL).  She is a first generation college graduate from a Title 1 secondary school, as well as a Pell Grant recipient.   Tracie was a National Physical Sciences Consortium (NPSC) fellow at Georgia Institute of Technology with SNL as her sponsoring employer, and obtained her Doctorate in Mechanical Engineering in 2004.  She has been at SNL since then and has contributed as a technical staff member to the labs global security and nuclear deterrence missions, and is now in the Chief Research Office.  Tracie is passionate about increasing access to careers in STEM and credits the NPSC fellowship, and the support she received from her manager at SNL, with giving her the confidence to pursue graduate school.

Marinda Thomas

Marinda is a San Francisco native and a proud Graduate Fellowships for STEM Diversity alumni. After receiving a BS in Chemistry from Howard University, GFSD supported her in receiving a MS in Civil & Environmental Engineering from Stanford University. She started her professional career as an Environmental Engineer and designed water/wastewater infrastructure projects across California before realizing she liked people even more than pipelines. 

Marinda has since been recruiting in Silicon Valley for over 10 years, initially specializing in software engineering, product and design searches. She then moved into a leadership recruiting function, first at a boutique agency and then in-house at Facebook. From there, she next launched her own successful recruiting business, helping a wide variety of startups identify both technical and non-technical talent of all levels. She is now the Sr Talent Acquisition Partner at Geli, a startup in the renewable energy storage space. 

When she’s not working, Marinda is an avid snowboarder and loves camping (and glamping!) during the summer months. On her quest to be a polyglot, she speaks Spanish, decent German and horrible Italian.