Queen Mary School of Engineering and Materials Science second-year undergraduate student Ava Dahlia Belafonte has been successful in securing the Student Enhanced Engagement and Development (SEED) Award from the Queen Mary Academy for her significant contributions as a student research assistant on the co-creational mathematics education project titled 'Making diversity count: empowering students through co-creation of inclusive STEM curricula', supervised by Dr Rehan Shah.

In working on this project, Ava gained experience with inclusive curriculum development, designed to improve students' educational experiences through facilitation of effective learning environments. As the principal student researcher of this project from the Queen Mary Centre for Undergraduate Research, she solely compiled and incorporated biographies of STEM professionals by introducing additional sub-categories to the toolkit booklet and also employed her creative multimedia design skills to produce innovative presentations and digitised design posters, which she disseminated at the CAISE Inclusive Scholarship workshop, Posters in Parliament event at the House of Commons and at the QMUL Festival of Education, where it was awarded the Best Innovation Poster Award.

The project aims to increase students’ awareness of diverse representation within STEM disciplines; not just through exposure to mathematicians, scientists, and engineers from diverse and under-represented backgrounds (e.g. African, Islamic, Asian, female, disabled, and LGBTQ+), but also those applying their skills within academia and industry through non-traditional pathways, so as to present students with inspiring examples of both historic and current STEM professionals to serve as positive role models.

Her ongoing work with Dr Shah on this project is featured on the new Education Resources section of the SEMS EDI website and the new QMPlus course page, which will serve as an internal repository of materials for staff to make use of within their own modules.