Kelly Mack

Dr. Kelly Mack is a nationally recognized leader in STEM higher education reform and a dedicated advocate for advancing excellence and equity across the academic enterprise. As Vice President for Undergraduate STEM Education and Executive Director of Project Kaleidoscope at the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), she leads a transformative portfolio of initiatives designed to enhance the quality of academic life for our nation’s STEM faculty and administrators—and, by extension, improve the educational experiences of undergraduate STEM students.

Guided by principles of positivity, introspection, mindfulness, and intentional change, Dr. Mack designs and leads best-in-class professional and leadership development experiences that empower STEM faculty and administrators to reflect deeply and manage their choices, actions, and responses to complex situations with confidence, clarity, and purpose. Drawing on her training as a physiologist, Dr. Mack brings STEM faculty and administrators into productive and dynamic equilibrium with higher education systems—where new patterns of thought and behavior can be cultivated to bring about lasting change.

Under her leadership, AAC&U’s STEM reform enterprise has evolved into a national resource—one that has informed significant shifts in the delivery of leadership development programming for STEM faculty and administrators, substantially increased the capacity of STEM faculty to implement culturally responsive pedagogies and institution-wide change initiatives, and fostered meaningful expansion of new virtual platforms for knowledge creation, translation, and dissemination.

A widely respected thought leader and sought-after speaker, Dr. Mack is known for inspiring a sense of hope and vision for the future of undergraduate STEM education. Her work has been featured in Diverse: Issues in Higher Education and U.S. News & World Report, and she has published extensively on STEM faculty professional development and leadership. She is the editor of Culturally Responsive Strategies for Reforming STEM Higher Education: Turning the TIDES on Inequity and currently serves as Senior Editor of the ADVANCE Journal, Founding Editor of the Journal of STEM Leadership and Broadening Participation, and Co-Founder of the Society of STEM Women of Color, Incorporated. She also serves as a board member and advisor to numerous national STEM reform initiatives.

Before joining AAC&U, Dr. Mack served as Senior Program Director for the National Science Foundation’s ADVANCE Program while on loan from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, where she was a Professor of Biology, teaching courses in physiology and endocrinology.

Dr. Mack earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore and her doctorate in Physiology and Biophysics from Howard University. Her early research in cancer biology examined novel antitumor agents in breast tumor cells and the regulatory role of bioflavonoids in estrogen receptor–positive and –negative breast cancer proliferation. More recently, her scholarly interests have focused on STEM leadership development and the influence of mindfulness, evidence-based coaching, and care-full collaboration on faculty self-efficacy, work–life balance, and scholarly productivity.

Areas of Expertise

• Undergraduate STEM Education Innovation
• Equity-Driven Strategy and Broadening Participation in Higher Education
• Faculty Leadership, Capacity Building, and Professional Development
• Gender Equity and Inclusive Leadership in STEM Ecosystems
• Institutional Excellence and Renewal
• Systems Design for Institutional Change and Transformation