Campus I-STEM director retires

In her 30 years at the University of Illinois, Fox Family Professor Lizanne DeStefano has left an indelible mark in both engineering and education. As the director of the I-STEM educational initiative, DeStefano has not only helped evaluate and improve K-12 educational programs, but she has also helped increase the number and quality of STEM teachers at Illinois.

In August, DeStefano retired from the University of Illinois; she is now a professor in the School of Psychology at Georgia Tech University, where she is continuing her work on program evaluation. She is also an associate dean for Outreach and Evaluation in the College of Science, where she works on grant writing and program improvement, and she's the executive director for the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC), which is a campus center that focuses on improving access and diversity in STEM education.

A significant part of DeStefano’s legacy at Illinois revolved around her launching of the I-STEM program in 2008. I-STEM has played a key role in improving science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education in both under-represented areas from K-12 and K-16 levels. DeStefano’s time as director of the I-STEM office has been a pivotal time for STEM education at Illinois. The I-STEM office has established itself as the central hub for other campus units when it comes to managing and collecting data, identifying novel strategies in evaluating STEM programs, and incorporating diversity into disciplines at every level—at the classroom, research, education, and social outreach levels.

In addition to her work on the I-STEM initiative, DeStefano played a significant role evaluating the outreach components of various Micro & Nanotechnology Lab (MNTL) and Center for Nanoscale Science & Technology (CNST)-related National Science Foundation grants.

“The MNTL/CNST are terrific researchers and grant writers, so I do not presume that I had anything to do with their success,” she said. “I hope I was able to help them develop stronger and more innovative education programs that not only made the grant more competitive, but actually resulted in stronger educational programs at Illinois.”

According to CNST Director Irfan Ahmad, DeStefano has been a great mentor, great team leader, and a good friend over the years. “Lizanne has not only been a key contributor, but a strategic thinker and a strong advocate of diversity and STEM education across this campus, funding agencies, and the world,” said Ahmad, who worked closely with DeStefano on the BioNanotechnology Summer Institute each year.

Although DeStefano has played a vital role in furthering Illinois’ advanced research, her background was originally in clinical and educational psychology; she received her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh in 1986 and was once a special education teacher.

In looking back on her Illinois career, DeStefano said she was most proud of the bridges she helped build among disparate campus units, particularly through conducting studies that examined the climate for under-represented groups. “I would say that I am most proud of the deep collaboration that was formed with Engineering, beginning with the first climate study in 2003 and continuing through NanoCEMMS, the CMMB IGERT and CNST CancerNanotechnology training grant, the Bionanotechology Summer School and the EBICS STC,” she said. “I believe we created some amazingly effective and innovative educational programs that have been models on campus. I also think that the student-focused climate studies in Engineering and Chemistry provided lots of good information to target program improvements and build new programs.”

According to DeStefano, she and her staff extended the student surveys to several campus research centers, such as XSEDE, Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology, and Center for Brains, Minds and Machines. “NSF has gotten really excited about this idea and has asked me to work with other Science & Technology Centers on climate studies.”

Another point of pride for DeStefano is the students she has worked with through the College of Education and I-STEM. “I truly believe that their graduate experiences were substantially different than the ‘typical’ student who was not involved in a Center or special training program, and I look forward to seeing them thrive in the next phases of their lives,” she said.

On Sept 11, the provost’s office hosted a retirement reception for DeStefano at MNTL. In her remarks, she summarized her experience at Illinois: “What characterizes my career here at Illinois is that any time I wanted to try anything new, anything different, I never encountered any resistance or discouragement. The attitude here is: ‘Yeah try that out, that sounds great,’ so when people mention my can-do attitude, I really developed that thanks to Illinois, [which] is a place that allows you to reinvent yourself and try new things."