Ansley Booker Named Executive Director of Dartmouth NEXT

Ansley Booker, the inaugural Penny and Jim Coulter 1982 Executive Director of Dartmouth NEXT, is working to expand opportunities for students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and has a STEM background herself. (Photo by Katie Lenhart)

Dartmouth NEXT was launched with a historic $100 million goal to diversify the STEM pipeline by creating opportunities for students to pursue careers in the sciences. The heart of that effort includes a $25 million gift from Penny and Jim Coulter '82 to endow the executive directorship and to establish the Coulter Scholars program, which is welcoming its first cohort to campus this fall. The initiative has already raised more than $60 million toward the goal.

"The most urgent challenges facing the world today require increasing the numbers of people who enter STEM fields. It's what the National Science Foundation has called 'the missing millions,' who are needed more than ever to fill jobs and take leadership roles in science-driven careers," says President Sian Leah Beilock, a founder and leader of the EDGE Consortium, a coalition of women-led universities and engineering schools seeking to double the number of industry-ready trained individuals, with a focus on women and underrepresented individuals, entering the semiconductor industry.

Booker most recently served as the inaugural director of diversity and inclusion initiatives at Mercer University. She holds a PhD in educational leadership from Mercer, a master of science in pharmacy from the University of Georgia, and a bachelor's degree from Georgia Southern University, where she majored in biology with a minor in chemistry and was a Ronald E. McNair Scholar. She arrived in Hanover in August and has been actively reaching out to colleagues and partners across campus.

As executive director of Dartmouth NEXT, Booker will serve as a strategic partner, thought leader, and advocate for diversity in STEM, partnering with Dartmouth's nationally distinctive initiatives—including the Women in Science Project, the E.E. Just Program, Dartmouth Emerging Engineers, the Teaching Science Fellows—to develop a university-wide strategy to increase opportunities for the broadest range of students to have exceptional STEM experiences.