Associate Professor Wilkistar Otieno is beginning her 2023-24 fellowship in ELATES at Drexel®, a national executive leadership development program.
ELATES at Drexel® is designed to transform women senior faculty, and faculty allies of all genders, into effective leaders within their universities, dedicated to increasing the representation of women in higher education STEM leadership. It was developed by Drexel University in 2012.
This current cohort includes 40 faculty from 33 different institutions across the U.S. and Canada who are rising leaders in their fields. Nominated by their dean or provost, the fellows have significant administrative experience on top of their scholarly accomplishments in a wide spectrum of fields.
ELATES at Drexel® is an intensive full-year, part-time fellowship facilitated by experts in the fields of STEM research and leadership development. The curriculum includes classroom immersions with experiential modules, virtual instruction, coaching and mentorship, and an applied project at each fellow’s home institution.
Fellows will:
- Improve their personal and professional leadership skills through professional and peer coaching, personality and leadership style inventories, and evaluations.
- Learn, through activities, classroom presentations and interviews with their own institutional leaders, how to understand and navigate organizational dynamics.
- Expand their knowledge of strategic finance and resource management at their institutions.
At UWM, Otieno was the principal investigator of an NSF STEM grant, is an assistant director of the DOE-funded Industry Assessment Center, and serves as a long-term faculty mentor for the UWM Wisconsin Alliance for Minority Participation, also an NSF grant. In October 2022, the Universities of Wisconsin presented Otieno with an Outstanding Women of Color in Education Award.