 Good afternoon, everyone. I want to welcome you to the second of three workshops on increasing leadership from historically underrepresented groups. This workshop is supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation and Resources from Penn State University. Jose Fuentes and I were inspired to organize this workshop by the work of the National Science Foundation Committee on Equal Opportunity in Science and Engineering known as SEOS. Dr. Fuentes is the chair of the committee and I was a member for two quite separated six-year terms. This committee writes a report to Congress every two years that summarizes the state of opportunity and barriers for, quote, women, minorities and person with disabilities in science, technology, engineering and math as well as other STEM related fields. Each report is also supposed to make specific recommendations to NSF. One such report resulted in the creation of the Includes Program, which we may hear more about on the workshop scheduled for January 20th. The latest report recommends that NSF, quote, demonstrate and promote bold leadership actions to create, integrate, and make visible elements within and across its programs to enhance broadening participation in STEM. This is the first of a series of reports which will focus on leadership in STEM from individuals from underrepresented groups. So our workshop, we hope, will help to inform those upcoming reports and we will write a report to help along with that. The latest report covers from 2019 to 2020 and was released late last year. Like all such reports, it's available for download at no cost on the CS webpage at the NSF site. With our two organizers, Willie Pearson and John Slaughter, we felt it would be worthwhile to convene present and past leaders to explore elements of effective leadership at all levels as well as strategies for increasing leaders from historically underrepresented groups within a wide spectrum of institutions to highlight the importance of leaders from underrepresented groups. People that we have chosen for this series of presentation come from one or more of those groups. In the first workshop on October 29th, we heard from leaders who were among the early pioneers in achieving leadership positions when it was most difficult. We also heard from some current leaders. Their stories were inspiring and it was encouraging to see how much had changed. It was also apparent that in many cases, not enough has changed and there's a long way to go. We heard about programs that are effective in encouraging, nurturing and producing leaders from underrepresented groups. But we also know that although the numbers have inched up incrementally, really they've barely kept up with the change in demographics in this country. Now, based on feedback from attendees at that session, we have recorded and posted each of the sessions, each of the presentations separately on the website and they are now freely available and will make it publicly available as soon as the workshop is concluded shortly after January 20th. We will also send a survey after this workshop adjourns. We appreciate your responses and we do plan to act on your suggestions and have already. We will prepare a summary of the three days as well as a comprehensive report that will make recommendations that results from this workshop. Your suggestions could be included in those reports as well. Now, we had 176 attendees in the first workshop and over 350 people have now registered. That, by the way, is why you can't turn on your cameras or mics to ensure the best experience for all attendees during the presentations. Now, the moderators of each session will introduce each speaker just before each person presents. Moderators will also keep track of time and monitor comments and questions in the chat and Q&A box during the presentation and we'll convey those questions and comments to the speakers in the question and answer period which will happen after the three presentations have been made. Speakers, of course, can address the questions through the chat as they wish after they've spoken. Now, we have an exciting lineup for you today and I could share my screen to show you that and let's see if we can just do that. So we're gonna start with two biochemists and an engineer talking to us from their positions of leadership in the business world. This next session will provide insights into the important role of stories and music and the lessons that can be learned from the creative arts. The last session will discuss approaches in different institutions, different kinds of institutions, a tribal college, a large state university system and a large public university. And finally, we'll end with a plenary session where Suzanne Barber, a biochemist and Dean of the Graduate School at the University of North Carolina will summarize today's proceedings and lead a discussion with panelists on your questions. We may be able to unmute people during that session. I wanna say that Dr. Barber's ability to summarize the proceedings of a meeting are spectacular and I urge you to listen to her remarks from October 29th. A break is scheduled after each session. Its length will depend on the session that precedes it. We will start each session on time because people need to feel free to come and go as they wish. I wanna thank the team that made this workshop possible. My co-chair Jose Fernandez, the other two members of the organizing committee, Drs. Willie Pearson and John Slaughter whose insights and suggestions enriched the grant application and the content of the workshops, Jane Sutterland and Maria Hurley who are responsible for the website, the recordings and all the technical details. Kathy Johnson who's responsible for the survey and its analysis and Angie Chapman our repertoire whose major efforts are to come and all of the speakers and moderators. We also thank archive captioning and Sarah who is with us today to provide closed captioning. I'll end with this. Last night, I watched a documentary on Netflix called 14 Mountains, Nothing is Impossible. It is the story of Nirmal Purja or Puja known as Nims and his quest to climb all 14 peaks over 8,000 meters. That's over 26,200 feet in seven months. Everyone, everyone told him it was impossible. The record at the time was seven years, 10 months and 10 days. He and his teams all Nepalese climbed all 14 peaks in 189 days. In some cases in one day, they summited and descended peaks. Others had taken in stages and done over four to five days. And unlike most Western climbers, they carried all their own gear and set their own rope paths. It was a particularly inspiring lesson in leadership, especially on this date when we are reminded how divided we are as our nation. Our goal of more leaders from underrepresented groups can seem impossible. We've only made minimal progress over the last 50 years or more despite general consensus that increased diversity is essential. But this documentary reminded me, nothing is impossible. So choose your mountain, there need not be 14, then plan, prepare and execute. And now I'll turn this over to Dr. Gabriel Lopez, who will introduce himself and the speakers. Thank you.