4/19/2023 Debra Levey Larson
Written by Debra Levey Larson
Theresa Saxton-Fox said she first became aware of educational inequalities as a high school student in the public school system. Since then, she has been an active advocate in numerous efforts at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as well as in the community and state.
Saxton-Fox is an assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at UIUC. She received the 2023 Grainger College Award for Leadership or Institutional Impact on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
“I believe through engineering, creative people can work together to improve the world,” she said. “I see in my research every day how important it is for different people to try to solve the same problem; each of us has different strengths and it is only as a community that we make progress. It is a net good for the world to have people with different backgrounds and perspectives define the most important problems and solve them.”
Saxton-Fox has demonstrated leadership in DEI efforts on several levels.
She is the chair of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee in the American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics, chairs the department’s DEI committee known as Aero’s Space to Belong, serves on The Grainger College of Engineering Diversity Committee, and served on a hiring committee for the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion office.
Outside of the university, Saxton-Fox also tutors students at the Danville Correctional Center through the Education Justice Project of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Saxton-Fox said one of her main goals is to unlock the potential of more allies.
“It is enormously helpful that The Grainger College of Engineering values inclusion as a part of tenure evaluations, but risks to one’s reputation as a serious researcher persist,” she said. “I think our goal cannot be to remove all risks, but instead to encourage bravery in the face of those risks.
“We cannot wait until after tenure to do good: we become the person we practice being every day. If we want to support our students, stand up for our colleagues, and act definitively for inclusion, we have to practice that behavior every day of our lives and must be willing to accept small fears and risks along the way.”