Departmental Affiliations
Additional Links
Experiences & Accomplishments
Dr. Ebony McGee, a 13-time NSF investigator awardee and electrical engineer by training, is a Professor of Innovation and Inclusion in the STEM Ecosystem at Johns Hopkins University鈥檚 School of Education and Department of Mental Health. She specializes in the research of race and structural racism within the STEM ecosystem, a role that has established her as the leading expert in this arena.
Dr. McGee's groundbreaking work in STEM education and occupation focuses on the experiences and mental/physical health outcomes for Black and other minoritized students and professionals. Her investigations extend beyond traditional boundaries, delving into the limits of resiliency, wellness, and job embeddedness within the STEM ecosystem.
Responding to these challenges, Dr. McGee has pioneered multiple initiatives, such as the , the Explorations in Diversifying Engineering Faculty Initiative (EDEFI), and the Institute in These initiatives are made possible via support from the National Science Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the WT Grant Foundation.
Her most recent research, funded by a from the National Science Foundation, ventures into the intersection of STEM innovation and entrepreneurship. The program's mission is to unlock the entrepreneurial potential of underrepresented undergraduates in STEM over a five-year span, challenging systemic racism and fostering diverse business owners.
A significant portion of Dr. McGee's scholarship investigates how Afrofuturism鈥攁 movement that merges science, technology, and African diasporic culture to envision more equitable futures鈥攃an be leveraged to dismantle racial barriers in STEM. She co-authored a chapter on Afrofuturism in the "Handbook of Urban Education," emphasizing the potential of Afrofuturist principles to reimagine STEM for Black urban learners. Her work often highlights how Afrofuturist artists and writers, like Octavia E. Butler, use speculative fiction to address contemporary issues such as environmental justice, food insecurity, and advanced computing ethics, providing a visionary blueprint for real-world STEM innovations.
A key tenet in her work is equity ethics. Published in the , , , and , she has demonstrated that racially minoritized individuals in STEM are driven towards empathetic social causes and racial justice efforts, translating their own experiences into efforts to end disparities both locally and globally.
Dr. McGee's research culminated in her sole-authored book, "", which was crafted based on 319 interviews with high-achieving, underrepresented STEM undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty of color. Her book has received positive reviews in 罢别补肠丑别谤鈥檚&苍产蝉辫; Record, , ,, and the .
Dr. McGee is a frequent contributor to op-eds in publications like , , , , , , , and the . Her research has appeared in Science, , , , , , and the .
Click on the links below to learn more about Dr. McGee鈥檚 work:
Personal Website:
Visit the R-RIGHTS website at
Visit the ICQCM website at
LinkedIn Page:
Twitter: @Relationshipgap
Select Publications
McGee, E. O. (2020). Black, Brown, Bruised: How Racialized STEM Education Stifles Innovation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.
McGee, E. O. (in press). Dying to Succeed: Realizing the Price of Academic Success for Black Women. Qualitative Inquiry.
McGee, E. O. & Monroe-White, T.,* Engelman, S., Reinhart, M.,* and Yunyi, S.* (in-press). Mechanical, Electrical, & Computer Science Engineering Doctoral Students: Career Trajectories, Health, & Racial Activism.131st ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, American Society of Engineering Education Conference Proceeding 2024. June 23-26, 2024.
McGee, E. O., Mitchell, J. T., Junhao C. (in press). New Homeland: How Geography Matters in the College Selection and Career Decisions of STEM PhDs. Journal of STEM Education: Innovations and Research.
White, D. T.*, & McGee, E. O. (in press). Afrofuturism Unveiled: Illuminating The Path to Cultural Resurgence and Stem Excellence. Science for the People Magazine.
Roemer, C. G., Goetzel, R.Z., Davis, M. F., Zhang, Y., Kent, K. B., Harter, J., McGee, E. O., Troester, J. M., Hilton, L., Stratton, S. K., Vietas, J., and MacKenzie, E. (In-press). Proceedings from a National Summit on Workplace Mental Health and Well-Being: A Focus on the Graduate Academic Environment. Dying to Succeed: Realizing the Price of Academic Success for Black Scholars (in STEM). Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (JOEM).
McGee, E. O., Main, J., Hailu, M., & Miles, M.*, & Cox, M. (2024). Wage Disparities in Academia for Engineering Women of Color and the Limitations of Advocacy and Agency. Research in Higher Education.
McGee, E. O. &Monroe-White, T.*, Laosebikan, O.*, and Vilfranc, C.* (2024). Interrogating the Relationship between Racial Activism and Academic Career
Interest among STEM Doctoral Students. American Journal of Education. 130(2).
Miles, M.,* McGee, E. O., Botchway, P.* (2024). Mixed Reviews on Diversity Initiatives: Toward an Institutional Change Model for Black Faculty in Engineering and Computing. Frontiers in Education, STEM Education. 9:1324389.
doi: 10.3389/feduc.2024.1324389
Coley, B. C., Allen, A. M., & Artis, S., Bekki, J. M., & Kadir, K., Pollock, M. C., Garrison Tull, R., Vanasupa, L., Williams, R. L., Hatfield, H. R., & McGee, E. O. (2024, February), View from the Kaleidoscope: Conceptualizing antiracist priorities for engineering as a collective across vantages Paper presented at 2024 Collaborative Network for Engineering & Computing Diversity (CoNECD), Arlington, Virginia. 10.18260/1-2--45494
2023
McGee, E. O., White, D.T.,* Cox, M. F., Main, J. B., and Parker, L.* (2023). How Women of Color Engineering Faculty Respond to Wage Disparities. In Joseph, T.D. and Hirschfield, L.F. (Eds.), Reexamining Racism, Sexism, and Identity Taxation in the Academy. Routledge Press: New York.
McGee, E. O., Morton, T., White, D. T.* Frierson, W.* (2023). Accelerating Racial Activism in STEM Higher Education by Institutionalizing Equity Ethics. Teachers College Record. 125(9).
Monroe-White, T.,* McGee, E. O., T. (2023). Toward a Race-Conscious Entrepreneurship Education: The Mediating Role of Racial Activism in Catalyzing Black Nascent STEM Entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy, 0(0). DOI:
McGee, E. O., White, D.,* Parker, L.,* Cox, M. F., and Main, J. B. (2023). How Women of Color Engineering Faculty Respond to Wage Disparities. Ethnic and Racial Studies. DOI:
Miles, M.*, White, D. T.*, Brockman, A.*, & McGee, E. O. (2023). How Do Black Engineering and Computing Doctoral Students Analyze and Appraise their (Depleted) STEM Diversity Programming? Frontiers in Education.8.
2022
Yoon, S. Y., Aldridge, J., Cox, M. F., Main, J. B., & McGee, E. O. (2022). Validation of the Workplace Climate Scale for Faculty Framed in Intersectionality of Gender, Race/Ethnicity, and Class. Research in Higher Education.
Main, J. B., McGee, E. O., Cox, M. F., Tan, L., & Berdanier, C. G. P. (2022). Trends in the underrepresentation of women of color faculty in engineering (2005鈥2018). Journal of Diversity in Higher Education. Advance online publication.
McGee, E. O., & Parker, L.,* Taylor, O., Mack, K. (2022). HBCU College Presidents and their Racially Conscious Approaches to Diversifying STEM. The Journal of Negro Education, 90(3), 288-305. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/847767/summary
Pearman II, F. A.* & McGee, E. O. (2022). Anti-Blackness and Racial Disproportionality in Gifted Education. Exceptional Children, 88(4), 359鈥380. doi:
McGee, E.O., Naphan-Kingery, D.,* Miles, M. L.,* & Joseph, O. (2022). Black Engineering and Computing Faculty鈥檚 Equity Ethic: Serving Black Students Between and through Academic Stages. Journal of Higher Education, 93(5), 702-734.
McGee, E. O., Jett, C., & White, D.* (2022). From Black Engineering Faculty to the Presidency: Pathways to Administration and University Leadership. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 15(5), 643鈥656.
Monroe-White, T.,* & McGee, E. O. (2022). Impact of Covid-19 on the Career Trajectories of Black, Indigenous and Latinx I.T. Graduate Students and Professionals. Southern Association for Information Systems (JSAIS), 9, 60-71. doi:10.17705/3JSIS.00027
2021
McGee, E. O. (2021). Fear, Fuel, and Fire! Black STEM Doctoral Students鈥 Career Decision-Making during the Trump Presidency. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. DOI:
McGee, E. O., Fang, Y.,* Li, Y. (Amanda),* Monroe-White, T.* (2021). How an Antiscience President and the COVID-19 Pandemic Altered the Career Trajectories of STEM PhD Students of Color. AERA Open, 7. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23328584211039217
McGee, E.O., Botchway, P. K.,* Naphan-Kingery, D.,* Brockman, A.* Houston, S. L.,* & White, D.* (2021). Racism camouflaged as impostorism and the impact on black STEM doctoral students. Race, Ethnicity, and Education, 25(4), 487-507. DOI:
BOOK CHAPTERS
McGee, E. O. & White, D.* (April 2021). Afrofuturism: Reimagining STEM for Black Urban Learners. In R. H. Milner & K. Lomotey (Eds.), Handbook of Urban Education. New York: Routledge.
https://www.routledge.com/Handbook-of-Urban-Education/IV-Lomotey/p/book/9780367354503
Milner, H. R., Harmon, D. M., & McGee, E. O. (2021). Critical Race Theory, Teacher Education, and the 鈥淣ew鈥 Focus on Racial Justice. In M. Lynn & A. D. Dixson (Eds.), The Handbook of Critical Race Theory in Education (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge Press. https://www.routledge.com/Handbook-of-Critical-Race-Theory-in-Education/Lynn-Dixson/p/book/9781138491724?fbclid=IwAR3BWjC1MvKjDp4-5lFCmsUCqueTKoaJOY5SR8UUeOTfCxjLpUPjFUPxMRE
2020
McGee, E. O. (2020). Interrogating Structural Racism in STEM Higher Education. Educational Researcher, 49(9), 633-644.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3102/0013189X20972718
The 5th most downloaded article of 2022
McGee, E. O., & Main, J., Miles, M. L.* & Cox, M. (2020). An Intersectional Approach to Investigating Persistence Among Women of Color Tenure-Track Engineering Faculty. Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering. 27(1), 57-84. DOI: 10.1615/JWomenMinorScienEng.2020035632
Main, J. B., Tan, L., Cox, M. F., McGee, E. O., & Katz, A. (2020). The correlation between undergraduate student diversity and the representation of women of color faculty in engineering. Journal of Engineering Education, 109(4), 843-864.
DOI:
Top 10 most downloaded publications in January - December 2020.
Houston, S. L.,* Pearman, F. A.,* & McGee, E. O. (2020). Risk, Protection, and Identity Development in High鈥怉chieving Black Males in High School. Journal of Research on Adolescence, e12568, 1-21.
2019
Ridgeway, M. L.,* Buenrostro, P., Marshall, S., Adams, M., & McGee, E. O. (2019).Cultivating Racial Solidarity among Mathematics Education Scholars of Color to Resist White Supremacy. The International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, 10(2), 97-125.
McGee, E. O., Naphan-Kingery, D. E.,* Mustafaa, F.,* Houston, S.,* Botchway, P.,* & Lynch, J.* (2019). Turned Off from an Academic Career While in the Academy: Engineering and Computing Doctoral Students and The Reasons for Their Dissuasion. International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 14, 277-305. http://ijds.org/Volume14/IJDSv14p277-305McGee5150.pdf
Naphan-Kingery, D.,* Miles, M. L.,* Brockman, A.,* McKane, R.,* Botchway, P.,* & McGee, E. O. (2019). Investigation of an equity ethic in engineering and computing doctoral students. Journal of Engineering Education. https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20284
McGee, E. O., Griffith, D. M., Houston, S.* (2019). 鈥淚 Know I Have to Work Twice as Hard and Hope That Makes Me Good Enough鈥: Exploring the Stress and Strain of Black Doctoral Students in Engineering and Computing. Teachers College Record, 121(4), 1-38. http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentId=22610
The Voice:.com/vialogues/play/51836/
Book Chapter
McGee, E. O., Robinson, W. H., Naphan-Kingery, D. E.,* Houston, S. L.,* & Leon-Perez, G. (2019). Determinants of Mental Health and Career Trajectories: Rationale and Design of the Engineering and Computing Doctoral Experiences Survey (ECDES). In E. O. McGee & W. H. Robinson (Eds.), Diversifying STEM: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Race and Gender (pp. 140-165). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/diversifying-stem/9781978805675
2018
McGee, E. O. (2018). 鈥淎sian Fail, Black Genius:鈥 The Detriment of Stereotype Lift and Stereotype Threat in High-Achieving Asian and Black STEM Students. AERA Open, 4(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/2332858418816658
**Among the 10 most read AERA Open articles, from April 2019 through June 2020
Ridgeway, M. L.,* & McGee, E. O. (2018). Black Mathematics Educators: Researching toward Racial Emancipation of Black Students. Urban Review, 50(2), 301-322. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11256-018-0452-2
2017
McGee, E. O., & Bentley, L. C.* (2017). The Equity Ethic: Black and Latinx College Students Reengineering Their STEM Careers toward Justice. American Journal of Education, 124(1), 1-36. http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/693954
McGee, E. O., & Bentley, L. C.* (2017). The Troubled Success of Black Women in STEM. Cognition and Instruction, 35(4), 265-289. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07370008.2017.1355211
McGee, E. O., Thakore, B. K., & LaBlance, S. (2017). The Burden of Being 鈥淢odel鈥: Racialized Experiences of Asian STEM College Students. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 10(3), 253-270. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000022
2016
McGee, E. O. (2016). Devalued Black and Latino Racial Identities: A By-Product of College STEM Culture? American Educational Research Journal, 53(6), 1626-1662.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3102/0002831216676572
McGee, E. O., & Stovall D. O. (2016). Reimagining Critical Race Theory in Education: Mental Health, Healing, and the Pathway to Liberatory Praxis. Republished as the centerpiece article in the Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy, (2015-16), 44-59. https://hjaap.hkspublications.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2018/02/HJAAPP-2016.pdf
McGee, E. O., White, D. T.,* Jenkins, A. K.,* Bentley, L.,* Houston, S.,* Smith, D.,* Bentley, L. C., Robinson, W., & Botchway, P. K.* (2016). Black engineering students鈥 motivation for PhD attainment: passion plus purpose. Journal for Multicultural Education, 10(2), 167-193. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JME-01-2016-0007/full/html