The Tippie College of Business has created two new positions to help the college meet key strategic goals around diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

Assistant Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship Michele Williams is the first Tippie DEI Faculty Fellow. This position was created to reduce the teaching load of a faculty member who is providing significant service or advances in pedagogy or research in the area of DEI. Williams will focus throughout the year on improving inclusivity in the classrooms at Tippie.

Gabriela Rivera has been promoted to the associate director of diversity, equity, and inclusion, a position created to serve both the undergraduate and graduate programs.

Amongst other projects, both Williams and Rivera will be conducting a faculty-wide needs assessment with attention to specific department needs and engaging to learn from alumni and students on DEI topics.

Williams is an assistant professor and John L. Miclot Faculty Fellow in Entrepreneurship at Tippie. She has a bachelor's degree in psychology from Johns Hopkins University, a master’s degree in education from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in business administration from the University of Michigan. Her academic areas of interest are entrepreneurship and innovation, gender and social categorization, and trust and collaboration.

Rivera has held many positions at the University of Iowa, including multicultural specialist in the Center for Diversity and Enrichment and Iowa Edge program director at the university level. At Tippie she is a student advisor and co-directs the Tippie Gateway Program, which recruits populations under-represented in business including first-generation, women, LGTBQ+, and students of color. She also created the BizEdge Mentoring Program to provide continued support to under-represented business students.