Exploring the Lived Experiences of African American and Latinx STEM Faculty and Students in the U.S.

Racialized faculty have been under-represented in U.S. institutions of higher education for decades and this is exacerbated in STEM disciplines with gender disproportionality. This study deployed a descriptive phenomenological design to capture the experiences of 11 faculty, postdoctoral, and graduate scholars who identified as African American and/or Latinx drawn from two universities in the southern U.S.; one a predominantly White, privately funded school and the other a designated Hispanic-Serving Institution that is publicly funded. We found four main themes (and three subthemes) that captured the shared lived experiences among the participants. We consider these findings through the lens of intersectionality.