About

Jennifer M. Bekki is a professor in The Polytechnic School within the Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University and serves as the associate dean of inclusive excellence within the Fulton Schools. She previously held the roles of associate director of The Polytechnic School and the inaugural graduate program director of the Engineering Education Systems and Design (EESD) program. Her interdisciplinary and highly collaborative scholarship broadly focuses on understanding the importance of interpersonal, structural, and institutional support on the wellbeing and success of graduate students and faculty in STEM fields. Bekki has co-authored more than 100 refereed journal papers, conference papers, and conference presentations, and has been part of research teams awarded over $15 million in funding from federal and private agencies. She has taught a wide range of courses within Fulton Schools' undergraduate engineering and manufacturing engineering degree programs and regularly teaches in the EESD doctoral program.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Pedagogy
• Political Science
• Medicine
• Psychiatry
• Computer Science
• Sociology
• Gender studies
• Clinical psychology
• World Wide Web
• Social psychology
• Gerontology
• Environmental health
• Medical education
• Knowledge management

Selected publications

• Exploring identity negotiation among disabled, Black international women pursuing undergraduate engineering degrees

  Journal of Engineering Education · 2026-02-20

  articleSenior author

  Abstract Background The experiences of the disabled community are notably absent from engineering education scholarship, with existing research often treating this group as a monolith. Intersectionality provides a critical framework for addressing this gap, illuminating the complexities of disability within ableist contexts by focusing on how intersecting systems of oppression affect individual experiences. Purpose Broadened use of intersectionality frameworks is needed to better understand the breadth of experiences within the disabled community. This study captures the nuanced dynamics of disabled identity negotiation by focusing on how individuals' identities intersect to shape their undergraduate engineering journey. Design/Methods This paper shares the narratives of two disabled, Black international women enrolled in undergraduate engineering programs. It was designed using narrative research methods and guided by Crip Theory and Critical Race Feminism. Results The narratives highlight the complex interplay of disability, race, gender, and nationality within the US‐based undergraduate engineering education landscape. Findings underscore the multifaceted challenges they encounter, which are amplified not only by their intersecting marginalized identities but also by the prevailing cultural and structural norms within engineering education. Conclusions This paper emphasizes the need to raise awareness around intersectionality within the disabled community to provide nuanced support to Black international women in undergraduate engineering education. Implications include discussion around deconstructing identity monoliths when considering support resources for students.

  PublisherDOI

• WIP: Designing Faculty Mentorship at Scale: Lessons from the Mentorship 360 Faculty Mentoring Program at Arizona State University

  2025-11-02

  article1st authorCorresponding

  This innovative practice WIP paper describes the Mentorship 360 (M360) Faculty Mentoring Program, a multi-level initiative implemented within the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University. Faculty mentorship is a critical yet often under-resourced element of academic success and retention, especially within large, interdisciplinary engineering colleges. Designed to address the diverse needs of faculty across career stages and appointment types, M360 integrates localized school-based mentorship, individualized coaching, cross-unit collaboration through a community of practice, and values-driven professional development workshops. The program aligns with best practices in formal mentoring, emphasizing intentional mentor-mentee matching, institutional support, and inclusive design. We describe the program's structure, implementation across multiple academic units, key lessons learned, and strategies for sustaining engagement and impact. Findings highlight both the promise and challenges of embedding mentorship into faculty culture at scale, offering insights for institutions seeking to foster faculty development, wellbeing, and belonging through systemic mentorship.

  PublisherDOI

• Toward dismantling anti-Blackness in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) through photovoice: Examining how Black womxn in STEM protected their mental health and wellness through resistance.

  Qualitative Psychology · 2025-06-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Exploring Identity Negotiation within Disabled, International Women of Color Pursuing Undergraduate Engineering Degrees

  2025-08-21 · 1 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Cripping the content: An analysis of disability-related digital content at engineering-intensive universities

  Policy Futures in Education · 2025-02-14 · 3 citations

  articleSenior author

  It is well known that disabled students face a myriad of barriers to inclusion while navigating higher education. Institutional policies and practices serve as fundamental drivers to the operation of a university and, as such, play a significant role in the support, experiences, protections, and inclusion of disabled students. This study critically analyzes the current state of disability-related institutional policies and practices across five large U.S. higher education institutions through a content analysis of their student support-related websites. As much of the analysis criteria for assessing disability inclusion are based on adherence to legal requirements, our findings showcase the extent to which universities meet or fail to meet the mere minimum accessibility legal requirements. Further, this paper extends beyond the evaluation of legal adherence to present a more comprehensive assessment of the current state of structural institutional support, marking a necessary first step for enhancing disability inclusion within higher education. We offer implications for improved disability support and enforcement of disability-related policies and practices within U.S. institutions of higher education.

  PublisherDOI

• View from the Kaleidoscope: Conceptualizing antiracist priorities for engineering as a collective across vantages

  2024-04-02

  articleOpen access

  Abstract In May, 2023 the RACIAL EQUITY CENTER NAME HERE (referred to as "the Center" hereafter) convened the inaugural meeting of its advisory board (AB). Twelve AB members, all with a demonstrated commitment to advancing racial equity within engineering were present. The AB was constructed with intentionality to include a variety of roles within the engineering educational ecosystem, a variety of racial / ethnic identities, a variety of sexuality identities, a variety of gender identities, and a variety of institutional homes. Professional roles represented by AB members in attendance at the meeting include: doctoral student, faculty at all ranks, college level administrator, university level administrator, entrepreneur, and nonprofit organization executive. Along with the AB members, four internal Center team members were in attendance: the Center's founding executive director, associate director, and two graduate student team members. The meeting spanned three days and had the following high level objectives: refine the Center priorities and initial activities, generate ideas for a sustainability plan that positions the Center to thrive financially at the end of its fifth year, generate ideas for a human infrastructure plan to support the center, and inform a plan and structure for continued engagement between the Center and the AB. This paper will report on a subset of the meeting activities and outcomes as related to the refinement of the Center's priorities. Specifically, the AB and Center team members collaboratively engaged in a structured process, designed to elucidate the group's collective vision about the issues of greatest opportunity and urgency in creating an anti-racist and equitable future for engineering. The outcome of the experience yielded the following fourteen priorities and opportunities (listed in no particular order): 1) building empathy in engineers; 2) broadening influence on what engineers learn, do, and recognize as engineering problems; 3) decolonizing engineering values; 4)increasing equity, transparency, and accountability in academic / university policies; 5) making the invisible (labor, time, harm, etc.) of Black engineers and engineering scholars visible; 6) removing the perceived threat of equity; 7) recognizing the harm of technological innovation; 8) changing the conversation (messaging) about engineering...again; 9) engagement as a pathway across the lifespan of an engineer; 10) rethinking assessment; 11) valuing reproducibility as a key component of equity-driven innovations; 12) removing money as an impediment to engineering graduate studies; 13) requiring equity as standard and required learning for everyone within the engineering ecosystem; and 14) normalizing wellness as a fundamental right for engineering scholars. The full paper will include details around the process used to generate the fourteen opportunity and priority areas as well as a detailed description of each of the opportunities and priorities themselves. Our intention in sharing the outcome of this activity at CoNECD is to move beyond these priorities to solely inform the activities of the Center. We wish to share the emergent opportunities and priorities toward serving as a resource for other equity-focused scholars and practitioners desiring to impact transformative change in their respective institutions.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Disentangling the Intersectional Identities of Disabled Women in Engineering Programs through Narrative Inquiry (WIP)

  2024-08-04 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  This Work-in-Progress (WIP) Research paper explores intersectionality among disabled women in engineering higher education.Our work seeks to understand the complexities of navigating the interlocking systems of sexism and ableism within engineering higher education.Semi-structured interviews were conducted with four disabled women engineering students from a single institution.The purpose of these interviews was to gain a deeper understanding of disabled women's unique experiences navigating their engineering degree program.Interview data were analyzed using narrative inquiry through thematic analysis.Preliminary results showcase the interdependence and compounding nature of sexism and ableism as they operate within engineering education.In this paper, we expand upon the impact of holding multiple marginalized identities, including disability, as described by these students and its effects on their lived experiences within engineering education.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• EXAMINING HOW GENDERED RACISM AFFECTS MENTAL HEALTH AND STEM PERSISTENCE AMONG GRADUATE WOMEN AND GENDER-DIVERSE STUDENTS OF COLOR

  Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering · 2024-07-30

  article

  The current study, informed by intersectionality and social cognitive career theory (SCCT), examined how STEM belonging, advisor alliance, and psychological distress affected how contextual barriers such as gendered racial microaggressions and racism and discrimination-related stress impacted women and gender-diverse students of color's (WGDSOC's) mental health and intentions to persist in STEM doctoral programs. The sample consisted of 221 students enrolled in U.S.-based STEM doctoral programs who identified as WGDSOC. Results indicated that advisor alliance, psychological distress, and STEM belonging were significant pathways through which gendered racist encounters (i.e., gendered racial microaggressions and racism and discrimination stress) impacted intentions to persist in STEM. STEM belonging was a key path through which gendered racist encounters were associated with students' psychological distress. We consider research implications and recommendations for how STEM faculty, advisors, and administrators can support WGDSOC.

  PublisherDOI

• Board 117: WIP: Exploring the Teaching Journey of Early-career Engineering Faculty

  2024-02-07 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  This work-in-progress paper explores the teaching experiences of early-career engineering faculty in their initial semesters of a faculty position. The challenges of starting a new faculty position make it one of the most critical moments in a faculty's career. Each individual will encounter specific challenges based on their held identities and institutional culture, but teaching is often a shared obstacle among them. One-on-one, 60-minute semi-structured interviews were conducted with engineering faculty members who have less than two years of total teaching experience as an instructor. The first stages of Campbell's Hero's Journey were used to facilitate the dialog and provide a narrative structure to the interview. The participants were asked questions related to three aspects of their teaching story: (1) the call to adventure, (2) challenges on the road, and (3) finding help. Preliminary findings indicate that early-career engineering faculty who participated in the study experienced challenges related to planning and operationalizing their lessons (e.g., knowing how to select content for their lessons), using the learning management system, and navigating online classroom environments. Further, analyzing the data through the lens of Schlossberg's Transition Theory helped identify that the support structure used to cope with challenges was informal mentorship, i.e., participants sought support from senior peers who had taught the same classes they were teaching and built their material from existing resources. These findings provide a first step in creating specific professional development activities for both new engineering faculty and new faculty generally to improve their experience in teaching.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• “It is So Exhausting to Constantly Have to Explain to People”: Exploring the Effects of Faculty Interactions on Disabled Students

  2024-02-07 · 6 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract This Research paper explores how disabled students' learning experiences are affected by faculty's responses to their disability disclosure and requests for accommodations. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted during the Fall 2022 semester with ten disabled engineering undergraduate and graduate students. The purpose of these interviews was to gain a deeper understanding of these students' unique experiences navigating their engineering degree program with a disability. Data were analyzed using open coding and constant comparison methods. Individual quotes were represented in a single, composite narrative. The composite narrative illuminates disabled students' experiences of their treatment by faculty and the ultimate impact of those experiences on the students. Understanding the ways in which faculty's treatment of disabled students impact their experiences is an integral step needed to move closer toward disabled justice.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• CareerWise III: Intersectional Perspectives on Perceived Supports & Persistence Among Diverse Women in STEM Doctoral Programs

  NSF · $727k · 2018–2022

Frequent coauthors

• Samantha Brunhaver

  Arizona State University

  47 shared

• Linda Vanasupa

  Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering

  42 shared

• Meagan Pollock

  Office of Diversity and Inclusion

  42 shared

• Brooke Coley

  Arizona State University

  40 shared

• Sharnnia Artis

  Daytona State College

  36 shared

• Khalid Kadir

  University of California, Berkeley

  36 shared

• Alaine Allen

  University of Pittsburgh

  36 shared

• Renetta Tull

  36 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Industrial Engineering

  Arizona State University

  2008

• M.S., Industrial Engineering

  Arizona State University

  2006

• B.S., Bioengineering

  Arizona State University

  1998