“Always having to dampen and dilute my essence in order to fit”: Intersectional Experiences of Queer Scholars of Color in STEM and STEM Education

Authors

Nuria Jaumot-Pascual, TERC, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USAFollow
Lisette Torres-Gerald, TERC, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USAFollow
Maria Ong, TERC, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USAFollow

Abstract

This article examines the intersectional experiences of queer scholars of color in STEM and STEM education. Using arts-informed research methods, we conducted and analyzed five interviews and a focus group transcript that focused on the support and hurdles that five participants encountered and the strategies they utilized to navigate their work in STEM and STEM education. We identified that, against the backdrop of prevailing heteronormativity and normative whiteness in STEM, participants compartmentalized their STEM and social identities, felt compelled to negotiate the risks of coming out, and assumed the double burden and invisible work of students who were queer and/or of color. Their main strategies included engaging in service and activism, developing counterspaces, and resisting stereotypes and cultural expectations. We also include a set of recommendations to start building culturally sustaining environments where scholars do not need to compartmentalize their identities and can bring their full selves into STEM workspaces.

Keywords

intersectional experiences, STEM, STEM education, queer scholars of color, arts-informed research, diversity

Author Bio(s)

Dr. Nuria Jaumot-Pascual (she/her/ella; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0769-4098) is a Research Scientist at TERC. She is an immigrant who grew up in Spain and came to the US as a young adult. She researches the experiences in STEM education and careers of populations that live at the intersection of interlocking marginalities, with an emphasis on gender/sexual identity and race/ethnicity. She is a methodologist who specializes in qualitative meta-synthesis and visual methods. She holds a doctorate in Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methodologies from the University of Georgia.

Dr. Lisette Torres-Gerald (also known as Lisette E. Torres; she/her/ella; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1548-0479) is a trained scientist and disabled scholar-activist whose work focuses on addressing racial and gender inequity and disability in STEM and higher education. She identifies as a cisgendered woman of color/Puerto Rican who was raised on the mainland U.S. in New Jersey. She earned a doctorate in Education with a Certificate in Social Justice from Iowa State University and an M.S. in Zoology with a Certificate in Ecology from Miami University.

Maria (Mia) Ong, Ph.D. (she/her; https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4111-8243), is an Asian American Senior Research Scientist at TERC and leads the Native STEM Portraits project. For over 25 years, she has researched the lived experiences of women of color and members of other minoritized groups in STEM higher education and professions, with emphases on qualitative research and syntheses projects. Dr. Ong is a past member of the National Science Foundation Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science and Engineering and the National Academies Committee to Address the Underrepresentation of Women of Color in Tech. She holds a doctorate in Social and Cultural Studies in Education from the University of California at Berkeley.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Nuria Jaumot-Pascual, 2067 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge MA 02140, Email: nuria_jaumot-pascual@terc.edu

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the study's participants for sharing with us their stories and their beautiful art creations. We hope this manuscript represents your words as you intended them. We would like to thank TERC's ERC Work Unit for its generous support with this study, which would not have been possible otherwise. Finally, we would like to thank Dr. Luis Leyva from Vanderbilt University, this study's advisor, for his support and gentle guidance throughout the study.

Publication Date

3-28-2026

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

Recommended APA Citation

Jaumot-Pascual, N., Torres, L. E., & Ong, M. (2026). “Always having to dampen and dilute my essence in order to fit”: Intersectional experiences of queer scholars of color in STEM and STEM education. The Qualitative Report, 31(3), 5400-5431. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2026.7812

ORCID ID

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0769-4098