Joyce Yen

University of Washington | Seattle, WA | 2021

Joyce Yen Portrait Photo

I am deeply honored by this Presidential Award. Several of my own science and engineering mentoring icons have previously been recognized with this same award; I am humbled to walk in their footsteps. Awards like this encourage everyone in the STEM community to recognize our role in and to do our part to create a culture of belonging in STEM where everyone is seen, supported, and celebrated and to make equity and inclusion foundational to STEM.

The official biography below was current at the time of the award. Awardees may choose to provide their latest biographical information on their profile page.

Joyce Yen is the Director of the University of Washington (UW) ADVANCE Center for Institutional Change. Since joining UW ADVANCE in 2003, Joyce has been a leader in eight NSF and National Institutes of Health-funded projects to support and mentor STEM faculty—particularly early-career faculty—and to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM. In her UW and national programs, Joyce creates community and connections, facilitates career and leadership skills acquisition, fosters agency and self-efficacy, and is responsive to mentee needs. She works to develop organizations and cultures where people from historically underrepresented and marginalized groups in STEM are valued, supported, celebrated, seen, and matter in academia. Hundreds of faculty have participated in Joyce’s programs, and she has mentored participants from all her various programs. Joyce has also led over 100 workshops, retreats, and trainings focused on diversity in STEM, bias in evaluation, cultural change in academia, and other related topics. In addition to her work in academia, Joyce has engaged with science philanthropy organizations to support their diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. Through this work, she has mentored department chairs and science philanthropy leaders and provided coaching, advice, and feedback on creating an inclusive culture in STEM and equitable evaluation processes. Joyce has a B.S., honors and highest distinction, in mathematics from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) and an M.S. and Ph.D. in industrial and operations engineering from the University of Michigan. She has been honored with the 2004 UNL Outstanding Young Alumni Award, 2012 UW David B. Thorud Leadership Award, and 2017 Women in Engineering ProActive Network’s Inclusive Culture and Equity Award.