Dr. Julie Ancis, Georgia Tech’s inaugural associate vice president of Institute Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, has announced she will be leaving Georgia Tech to accept a position as professor and director of cyberpsychology at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Since 2012, Ancis has been the architect of numerous diversity initiatives strategic to the Office of the President and focused on developing faculty, staff, and campus leadership. Ancis has served as an influential advisor to campus leaders on issues of equity and inclusion, and a noted researcher and author on these topics. 

“Dr. Ancis has made important contributions during her time at Tech,” said Dr. Archie W. Ervin, vice president for Institute Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. “Her extensive scholarship in psychology and diversity as well as national and international professional service has helped transform many Institute processes and procedures to eliminate bias and discrimination.”

Among her many contributions to Georgia Tech’s evolution in this area, she has been instrumental in helping faculty search and award committees create systematic, objective and transparent evaluation procedures for awards, hiring, and promotion processes.

Working in collaboration with the ADVANCE Professors to integrate equity, diversity, and inclusion-aware practices and behaviors into Georgia Tech’s fabric, Ancis developed and facilitated implicit bias workshops that became mandatory for all faculty serving on search, promotion, and tenure committees, the Provost’s Committee, a number of high-level search committees, and other evaluation-related committees on campus. Approximately 1,000 faculty have participated in these workshops and in order to expand capacity and demand, Ancis created and conducted a train-the-trainer program for faculty who now facilitate additional implicit bias workshops on campus. 

She has also expanded this work into content-specific workshops for Georgia Tech Admissions, computing and engineering students, and other audiences. A plethora of resources related to bias awareness, hiring, mentoring, promotion, and assessment within academia are captured in the equity, diversity, and inclusion website developed by Ancis at http://edei.advance.gatech.edu.

She also created the template for, and co-facilitated, the Leading Women@Tech program, a competitive academic year-long program designed to strengthen the development of women in leadership positions at Georgia Tech. Under Ancis’ leadership, participation has grown, and the curriculum has expanded to include mindfulness and efficacy. More than 60 female leaders over three cohorts have graduated since the inception of the program.

Development of the inaugural LGBTQIA Resource Center director’s position was led by Ancis, including benchmarking existing centers, and working with the Center to help establish its signature initiatives. She also served as Georgia Tech’s lead contact and outreach committee co-chair for the Out to Innovate Conference, a biennial cross-generational summit that provides an educational and supportive environment for LGBTQIA students, academics, and career professionals in STEM fields. 

Ancis was also involved in the development and revisions of the Georgia Tech Climate Study in 2013 and 2018, as well as qualitative research analysis, interpretation and presentation of findings to audiences across campus.

As Fellow of the American Psychological Association, Ancis has continued to engage in research and scholarship throughout her time at Georgia Tech. She served as PI for a $3.8 million Department of Education First in the World grant focused on the academic success of racial and ethnic minority students with print-related disabilities. She also served as co-PI on a $2 million NSF Revolutionizing Engineering and Computer Science Development grant with the Department of Biomedical Engineering focused on inclusion and belonging through the development of curriculum interventions, inclusive pedagogy, and related research. 

Ancis’ most recent co-edited book, Gender, Psychology and Justice: The Mental Health of Women and Girls in The Legal System published with NYU Press presents a critical analysis of girls’ and women’s experiences in the justice system and provides empirically-based approaches for work in legal settings.

Her community service includes the Diversity and Inclusion Board of the Technology Association of Georgia and she frequently speaks to local and international audiences on the intersections of STEM and diversity.