California is among the most racially and ethnically diverse states in the U.S., often coming in first or vying with Hawaii for the top spot. And this quality is particularly evident in the student body of the University of California (UC) system.

 However, this diversity of races and cultures is not as well reflected among faculty. Recent numbers compiled by the National Science Foundation (NSF) indicate that across all four-year colleges in the U.S., science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) associate and full professors from racial and ethnic minority groups occupy only about 8% of senior faculty positions; the proportion drops to 6% in the nation’s most research-intensive institutions.

 “As the UC diversifies in terms of its student population, we’re not seeing the same representation in the faculty itself,” said UC Santa Barbara assistant teaching professor Mike Wilton, a biologist whose work centers around finding ways to boost undergraduate student success in the STEM fields. UC Santa Barbara’s status as a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI), where the undergraduate Latinx population constitutes at least a quarter of the total undergraduate population, contrasts starkly to the faculty.