Before coming to Rice in 2012, Cech was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research. She earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, San Diego and B.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Sociology from Montana State University. Cech’s research seeks to uncover cultural mechanisms of inequality reproduction--particularly gender, sexual identity and racial/ethnic inequality within science and engineering professions. Her current research projects focus on the recruitment and retention of women, racial/ethnic minority and LGBTQ individuals and the role of professional cultures in inequality in STEM. visit author page