Dr. Veronica Fematt on Creating Counterspace
Veronica Fematt

Dr. Veronica Fematt

In this episode, we we talk to Veronica Fematt, new Assistant Director of UCSB's McNair Program, about how to increase the number of first- generation, low-income and/or underrepresented students in doctoral programs, and ultimately, to diversify the faculty in colleges and universities across the country.


Dr. Veronica Fematt is currently the Assistant Director of the McNair Program. She earned her Ph.D. with an emphasis in Educational Leadership and Organizations in the Department of Education in 2017. Prior to her current position, Fematt was the Policy and Practice Dissemination Coordinator for the Center for Evaluation and Educational Effectiveness at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB). In this role, Fematt was responsible for cultivating and maintaining working relationships with multiple stakeholders across the CSU system, the California Community College (CCC) system, and the U.S. Department of Education to disseminate key policy, practice, and methodological lessons from the CSU HSI-STEM Systemwide Research Project. Before CSULB, Fematt was a Postdoctoral Scholar and Lecturer in the Department of Chicana/o Studies at the UCSB where she developed and taught a catalogue of courses with a specialization in Education and Chicana/o Studies (e.g., Chicanas/os in Higher Education, Critical Race Theory in Chicana/o Education). Her research focuses on the community college transfer experience with an emphasis on campus climate issues such as, the stigmatization of transfer students and the manifestation of transfer student microaggressions and stereotypes at selective institutions. Her most recent work focuses on the experience of Latinx students in STEM fields.


Bits of Music You May Notice: Bits of music you may notice: Yo La Tengo, "Georgia Vs. Yo La Tengo," Remmy Ongala and Orchestre Super Matimila "One World," Gillian Welch, "The Revelator."


This episode was first broadcast on 91.9 KCSB FM on January 13, 2022.