Ashanti Edwards (she, her) is the AGU Director, Diversity and Inclusion. She brings a wealth of experience to this role from prior roles in working to create equity in the STEM field and workforce. She has served in leadership roles at non-profits and for-profit STEM organizations.  In her most recent role, she served as the Director of Professional Development at the American Society for Cell Biology, where she wrote and managed numerous grants and professional development programs with goals to increase underrepresented groups across the STEM pipeline. Prior to that, Ashanti served in leadership roles at the Foundation for Advanced Education in the Sciences at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD; and at and the Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD.  She brings extensive people leadership, multidisciplinary science project and committee leadership, and successful large grants procurement and management experience.