Ileana Vasu

Dr. Ileana Vasu (she/her) is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Smith College. She previously served for over twenty years at Holyoke Community College, including as department chair, and holds degrees from Stanford, Yale, and UMass Amherst. Based in Massachusetts, she works as a STEM education researcher and consultant, focused on student-centered pedagogy, asset-based frameworks, and humanizing STEM education. She has led two successful NSF S-STEM grants and designed faculty workshops supporting affirming mentoring relationships in STEM, working with both faculty and students to build these connections. As external evaluator for the NSF S-STEM Scholars Program at Fitchburg State University, she brings a cross-institutional view shaped by her own S-STEM leadership and her role on the Advisory Committee for the AAAS S-STEM Research and Evaluation Center, where she is also a blog author helping share program insights with the broader field. She is a founding member of NE-COMMIT (New England Community for Mathematics Inquiry in Teaching). She is passionate about humanizing STEM education and connecting and working with like-minded educators, researchers, and students committed to building more inclusive STEM spaces.