A Virtual Experience of a Student’s Reality

Brooke Coley saw the significance of policy and social justice in engineering early on, but didn’t realize how important it’d become in her career. A graduate of the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering with a PhD in bioengineering, her experience there would build the foundation for her future accomplishments.

Coley, now an assistant professor in engineering at the Polytechnic School of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University, is “pushing the boundaries of traditionally heteronormative engineering environments through transdisciplinary approaches, qualitative research, and art-based methods,” according to the university’s website. Her projects have received national recognition and garnered millions of funds  in support from the National Science Foundation (NSF). 

“A lot of my work is about getting close and personal to the lived experience,” Coley said. “When I meet with individuals to further this work, I try to amplify their stories for awareness and accountability.” 

Coley has been experimenting with her approach through virtual reality by using these narratives and translating them into immersive scenarios that encompass experiences students face in navigating engineering. These scenarios target faculty, who play the role of an avatar, to – quite literally – see from the perspective of a minoritized student. In one scenario, The Silent Library, the avatar is a student with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and who is trying to complete a virtual lecture in a library despite myriad distractions. As the distractions pop up, the player must disable them through sustained focus to continue with the lecture. At the end of the module, the player is quizzed on the material. 

Coley noted that all who have taken it have failed the quiz after as a result of the distractions. 

The project has been praised by members of the ADHD community and informed empathetic orientations in professors that have completed it. 

“When I started doing this kind of work, I was really inspired by my own inquisitiveness about the landscape around me in the engineering that was and the empirical evidence needed to transform it,” Coley said. 

Much of Coley’s work has been cultivated and spread to other institutions and collaborators through the Center of Research Advancing Racial Equity, Justice, and Sociotechnical Innovation Centered in Engineering (RARE JUSTICE) at Arizona State University. The Center, with Coley as Founding Executive Director, operates to model “a radically just engineering future through an actionable, antiracist orientation applied across the realms of scholarship and metrics, dissemination, workforce development, and community engagement and outreach.” The center has expanded through both research and workshops and was recently part of an $800,000 NSF award to help build mentorship and provide evidence-based psychological support systems for Black engineering academics. Coley serves as co-principal investigator on the project. 

Pushing Through Boundaries at Pitt 

There has always been a societal implication to Coley’s work. 

While at Pitt, she studied slips, trips, and falls in older adults (those 65 and older) to explore whether a biomechanical strategy could minimize the severity of perturbations. She joked that it was difficult to find individuals who would willingly fall in her laboratory, but with the help of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UMPC) and the Claude D. Pepper Center, specifically, she was able to complete her research. 

For Coley, her work at Pitt was her first dabble in understanding how engineering could help others. 

“It was really my first research experience that had a direct application,” Coley said. “I could see that the work I was doing could impact someone’s life.” 

Her time at Pitt was formative in her own personal experience as well. 

Coley – a Black woman – felt like an outsider for much of her tenure, and particularly, following her experience as a Meyerhoff Scholar at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) She learned that a lot of other students of color had the same feelings. 

“In that time, only a small percentage of my peers graduated as intended with their PhD,” Coley said. “I was lucky to find community and support in the Pitt EXCEL program, which is committed to helping underrepresented students succeed, and push through.” 

She also credits Mark Redfern, the current Interim Chair of Pitt’s Department of Bioengineering, and Sylvanus Wosu, associate professor of mechanical engineering and materials science and associate dean for diversity affairs, for their willingness to help Coley find where she fit in the world outside of Pitt. 

Redfern, who then was Coley’s mentor, remembers those conversations with Coley vividly and saw that she was struggling with what she actually wanted to pursue in her career. However, he noted that he could only guide her while she needed to discover her path on her own. 

“I remember my talks with Brooke fondly,” Redfern said. “Those conversations were hard. Anytime you are thinking about changing your path, it should be hard. Once she thought it through, she found a new direction, and it was perfect for her.”

While at Pitt, Coley formed one of her best friendships and professional connections in Kurt Beschorner, who was also a PhD student alongside Coley. Most notably, they learned from one another and built a friendship rooted in honesty.  

“Dr. Coley’s friendship stood out for our honest conversations on topics that are not often discussed,” said Beschorner, who is now associate professor and associate chair of graduate student professional development for the Department of Bioengineering. “We could spend part of a conversation discussing our PhD projects but also discussed racial inequities in university settings and how individual identity influences the graduate school experience. In these conversations, it always felt like we trusted each other enough to be honest and to challenge each other. Even now, I routinely think back on these conversations as this incredible gift that has provided me with an improved perspective in my career and life.”

Defining a New Type of Leader 

Coley’s work is far from over. 

As political climates become more tense, Coley fears that leaders are becoming more silent when, she believes, they need to be more vocal and vigilant than ever. 

“It’s very disheartening to be of a minoritized identity in this country,” Coley said. “The world doesn’t seem like it wants everyone to thrive. With so many supporting divisions in society, it’s becoming critical that leaders actively disrupt the status quo.”

For Coley herself, to be silent and inactive are to be complicit in these times.

“I want to be in a position that doesn’t succumb to performative change,” Coley said. “I want to be an agentic leader that makes actionable decisions which translate to more people thriving in engineering environments anchored in equity and justice – and to not lose myself in the process.”