Megan Segoshi

Director, BU Diversity & Inclusion

Email: msegoshi@bu.edu

Dr. Megan Segoshi (she/her) is the Director of BU Diversity & Inclusion, situated within the Community & Inclusion unit of BU’s Office of the Provost. She came to BU in Spring 2021 from the University of Michigan’s National Center for Institutional Diversity. Her scholarship has focused on affirmative action in higher education, Asian American student identity development and engagement in racial justice work, and race, equity, and access in higher education. As Director of BU D&I she has led and expanded efforts at the University level to foster community among faculty with marginalized identities, developed opportunities for professional development for early career faculty of color, and provided training to hundreds of BU faculty members on inclusive search practices. Megan has a PhD in Higher Education from Loyola University Chicago, an MSW from The University of Georgia, and a BA in Sociology from The University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

Abby Styles

Project Manager, BU Diversity & Inclusion

Email: aburmeis@bu.edu

Abby Styles (she/her) is the Project Manager for BU Diversity & Inclusion. Abby came to BU D&I in 2018 from the University of New Hampshire (UNH), where she worked in the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences Business Services Center. She has seen the BU D&I unit through its immense growth and transitions, using her institutional knowledge to onboard numerous D&I colleagues, as well as colleagues in partner units. In this role, she has been an integral part in the unit’s efforts to cultivate community and belonging at BU – staffing multiple task forces and committees, coordinating the logistics of BU’s first-ever university-wide climate survey, and managing the transition into their own office space (set to open in Spring 2024). Abby received a BA in Sociology, with a focus in psychosocial development, from UNH.

Annabelle Estera

Associate Director, BU Diversity & Inclusion

Email: aestera@bu.edu 

Dr. Annabelle Estera (she/her) is the Assistant Director of Training and Workshops with BU Diversity & Inclusion. Prior to joining BU in Spring 2024, she was an Assistant Professor in the School of Education at Endicott College, where her teaching centered on issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion across educational spaces. Her research has focused on the experiences of faculty of color, anticolonial approaches to education, and inclusive teaching and learning. She has also previously worked in multicultural student affairs. Annabelle earned her PhD in Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education from Michigan State University, MA in Higher Education and Student Affairs from The Ohio State University, and BA in Interdepartmental Studies from the University of Rochester.

Liv Jacobs

Graduate Assistant, BU Diversity & Inclusion

Liv Jacobs (they/them) is a PhD student in American and New England Studies at BU. They have an M.A. in Performance Studies from Washington University in St. Louis. Liv’s work engages with the unique confluence of factors which constitute Americanness using frameworks of performance, aesthetics, politics, and regionalism. As an interpretive ethnographer, Liv writes about folk/traditional communities and their music and dance practices. Their scholarship is committed to radical epistemologies and they are working to develop re-indigenized pedagogical models. With the D&I office, Liv Jacobs is available to provide guests and staff with practical support in administration and programming.  

Tim Johnson

Graduate Assistant, BU Diversity & Inclusion

Tim Johnson (he/him) is a third-year law student and ASPIRE Antiracist Scholar at BU Law. Before law school, he earned a B.S. in Public Health Science from the University of Maryland and worked in health insurance compliance for the Maryland state government. At BU Law, Tim has pursued his commitment to health equity through completing the Health Law Concentration, participating in practicums focused on health and racial justice, interning with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and serving as a Staff Editor on the American Journal of Law & Medicine. His scholarship at AJLM examined correctional healthcare, focusing on the systemic barriers and legal frameworks that limit incarcerated individuals’ access to medical malpractice relief. With the D&I Office, Tim provides administrative and programming support to guests and staff.

Gabby Simpson

Graduate Assistant, BU Diversity & Inclusion

Gabby Simpson (she/her) is a Master’s student in Journalism at BU’s College of Communication. She earned her undergraduate degree in Media & Cultural Studies from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. Gabby is studying journalism at BU to gain hands-on experience writing articles and producing video and audio-based news pieces to serve Boston communities. She is pursuing a career in broadcast journalism and is interested in covering environmental issues, science, and accountability journalism. Gabby works in communications within the D&I Office, illustrating and designing graphics for event materials and social media content.

Priya Garg

Associate Dean, Office of Medical Education, Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine

Dr. Priya Garg is the Associate Dean of Medical Education and Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine.  As Associate Dean, she has led the 2022 redesign of the medical school curriculum embedding evidence-based learning theory, active learning and teamwork into the curriculum. Dr. Garg focuses her scholarly work in medical education on antiracism and addressing health inequities through undergraduate medical curricula.  She serves as co-chair of the Association of American Medical Colleges Medical Education Senior Leaders task force on Addressing Racism in Medical Education.  She has been an invited speaker on antiracism in Undergraduate Medical Education at the National Academy of Science and Medicine, AAMC national meetings and medical schools across the US. She is also the Co-Director of the Academic Pediatric Association’s Educational Scholars Program, a national faculty development program in pediatrics focused on educational research and scholarship. She practices as a pediatric hospitalist at Boston Medical Center.

Laura Jiménez

Senior Lecturer, Director, Center for Educating Critically, Wheelock College of Education & Human Development

Dr. Laura M. Jiménez is a senior lecturer in the Language & Literacy Education Department at Boston University Wheelock College of Education & Human Development. She is also the director of the Center for Educating Critically. As a white-presenting Latina lesbian, her scholarship and activism center the multiple ways teaching has always been a political act. Additionally, it explores how educators can disrupt and create anti-oppressive, justice-oriented, inclusive classroom experiences for students.

Previously, Dr. Jiménez served as BU Wheelock’s associate dean for equity, diversity & inclusion. She is one of the inaugural Boston University D&I Partners Faculty Fellows. Her scholarship looks at the ways marginalized communities are represented in children and YA literature and the ways teachers can learn to critically engage their own teaching practices to include and forefront humanizing pedagogy and the power of modifying existing curriculum.

She is a founding member of the editorial board of Research on Diversity in Youth Literature, and a co-editor on the first all queer editorial team for NCTE’s Journal of Children’s Literature, co-editor of Diversity in Graphic Novels: Special Issue of Research on Diversity in Youth Literature. In addition, she is a co-author of Lee and Low’s 2023 and 2019 Diversity Baseline in Publishing surveys. Her work has been published in Journal for Literacy Research, Language Arts, Encyclopedia of Social Justice in Education, Literacy Research and Instruction, and other peer reviewed journals, as well as the Boston Globe, the New York Times, and other media outlets.

Kaylene Stevens

Program Director, Social Studies Education, Clinical Assistant Professor

Dr. Kaylene Stevens is the program director and a clinical assistant professor for social studies education at Boston University Wheelock College of Education & Human Development. Her research interests lie in how to best include marginalized groups in the social studies classroom and curricula as well as how to lift up the voices of teachers. She is a faculty affiliate with Boston University’s Center for Antiracist Research.

Before her work at Boston University, Dr. Stevens was a public school teacher and department head. She has several publications on gender-equitable and race-conscious teaching in the social studies classroom. Her work has been featured in the Journal of Social Studies Research and Theory & Research in Social Education. She coauthored the book Teaching History for Justice: Centering Activism in Students’ Study of the Past.