Rachel Kennison is an advocate for the persistence and retention of all undergraduates in STEM education. As a member of the CEILS team since 2015 and as the CEILS Executive Director she is engaged in the development of courses and initiatives to improve and transform undergraduate STEM education by using evidence-based practices that are driven by the principles and values of justice, equity, diversity and inclusion. Along with co-facilitating and administering the suite of CEILS programming aimed at supporting faculty, Dr. Kennison is the Institutional Administrative Co-Leader of UCLA’s Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL@UCLA), providing certification in scientific teaching and professional development for graduate students and postdoctoral scholars and serves on the CIRTL national Network Leadership Team. Dr. Kennison is the instructor of the innovative career development course for Life Science undergraduate majors, LS 110: Career Exploration in the Life Sciences and co-teaches the graduate level CIRTL Teaching as Research course.  Dr. Kennison earned her B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College, M.S. in Clinical Social Work from Columbia University and her Ph.D. in Biology from UCLA in 2008, advised and mentored by Dr. Peggy Fong.  She currently holds an Associate Teaching Professor position in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. She has a son who is a senior in College and a very friendly pup named Luna who loves to come to the office and accompany her to the beach and the mountains.