Beyond Metrics: How Early-Career URM Women in STEM Navigate Tenure, Identity, and Epistemic Exclusion

• In Event: Advancing Faculty Diversity, Research, and Mentorship in STEM

Abstract

This mixed methods study explores how early-career women from underrepresented and minoritized (URM) backgrounds in STEM navigate tenure-track expectations and inclusion-focused service within research-intensive universities. Guided by critical theories of race and epistemic exclusion methodologies, the study integrates critical narrative inquiry with national datasets to examine how neoliberal logics and global academic norms shape professional identity and labor. Findings reveal institutional devaluation of diversity work, identity negotiation under epistemic exclusion, and impacts on student equity efforts. The study offers insights into structural reforms that advance both faculty retention and student access, success, and belonging in STEM higher education.

Authors

• Al Dabiri, University of Missouri

• Gina Sarabella, Felician College