Assistant Professor Justin C. Major
IAS Open Programme
Rowan University
Dr. Justin C. Major (they/them) is an Assistant Professor of Experiential Engineering Education and Faculty Fellow for the Division of Student Access & Pathway Programs at Rowan University where they lead ASPIRE Lab (Advancing Student Pathways through Inequality Research in Engineering).
Justin’s research focuses on low-income students, engineering belonging and marginalization mechanisms, childhood trauma, and feminist approaches to engineering education research, and connects these topics to broader understandings of student success in engineering. Justin completed their Ph.D. in Engineering Education (’22) and M.S. in Aeronautics and Astronautics (’21) at Purdue University, and two B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and Secondary Mathematics Education at the University of Nevada, Reno (’17). Atop their education, Justin is a previous United States National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and has won over a dozen awards for research, teaching, service, and activism related to marginalized communities. As a previous homeless and food-insecure student, Justin is eager to challenge and change engineering education to be a pathway for socioeconomic mobility and broader systemic improvement rather than an additional barrier. To support this goal, Justin’s work critically uncovers and challenges thinking regarding the barriers and supports that students and their traditional and chosen families experience.
During their IAS Fellowship, Assistant Professor Major will be collaborating with Laurene Marrquesane Oliveira da Silva from the Department of Chemical Engineering.