Heather Metcalf, PhD (she/they) is a descendant of the Seminole Tribe of Florida. Heather serves as Program Officer for the AUNTIE Tech Collective at AISES where they support the Future AUNTIES (postsecondary students) and The AUNTIES (professionals) waterways. As someone who turned away from tech industry because of its toxic and exclusionary culture but left with a commitment to change that, Heather is thrilled to be reprogramming the system and Rematriating the algorithm with AUNTIE at AISES!
Heather is a transdisciplinary scientist, advocate, educator, and nonprofit leader focused on systemic change, liberation, and equity at the intersections of gender, race, Indigeneity, class, sexuality, and disability in STEM higher education, innovation, and careers. In addition to her part-time role with AISES, Heather is Co-Founder and Head of Research for Hexalign, a consulting company that supports marginalized STEM innovators while working with organizations to remove the root causes that lead to marginalization in the first place.
As part of their professional service, Heather is a member of the Leadership Council for the Societies Consortium to End Harassment in STEMM and guest associate editor for Frontiers in Sociology Research Topic, “From Gatekeeping to Gatebreaking: Leading Through Sociopolitical Pressures to Reimagine STEMM Ecosystems.” Heather also co-leads the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Emerging Researchers National Conference Professional STEMM Societies Working Group, of which AISES is a member, and is a consultant for Qualcomm’s The Inventor’s Patent Academy inclusive invention initiative.
Prior to coming to AISES, Heather was Managing Director of Research, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship at the Women in Engineering ProActive Network (WEPAN), winner of the AISES 2024 Research Partner Award. At WEPAN, Heather served on the executive leadership team, led the strategic research plan, and developed systemic change and career development programs, often in partnership with AISES. These collaborative programs were funded by the Small Business Administration, National Science Foundation, Henry Luce Foundation, Qualcomm, Every Page Foundation, and more and included the Empowered STEM Entrepreneurship Collective’s Synergiiize Innovator Program, Synergiiize Summit, and Synergiiize Gatebreaker Program; The Women of Color in Engineering Collaborative; and the ADVANCE Resource and Coordination Network.
Heather grew up in rural Pennsylvania and is first-generation college graduate. They have undergraduate degrees in applied mathematics and computer science from Pennsylvania Western University, master’s degrees in computer science and gender and women’s studies from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and University of Arizona respectively, a doctorate in higher education with a focus on science and technology policy studies from the University of Arizona, and a certificate in nonprofit management from Duke University. As someone who sees deep connections between STEM and the arts and humanities, Heather did their undergraduate minor in English writing, their computer science research area was human-computer interaction and inclusive interface design, and their graduate minors incorporated feminist science studies, critical race theory, Indigenous methodologies, queer theory, and critical disability studies.
Heather currently lives in Tucson, Arizona with her platonic lifemate, Alexx, and their three cats, Grendel, Nicodemus, and Azriel (aka Meep), and soon-to-be-retired service dog, Elvis. In her free time, Heather enjoys hiking, reading, traveling with friends, and learning new skills. She is currently learning how to crochet and taking American Sign Language classes.