Dr. Celeste Atkins joined the UArizona Graduate College as an Assistant Professor of Practice and the Director of the Initiative to Maximize Student Development IMSD) program in October 2022. She has been with UArizona in a variety of graduate student and staff positions since she began her doctoral program in 2017. She has a BA in sociology from California State University San Bernardino and an MA in sociology from the University of Southern California, both with an emphasis on race and gender. She received her doctorate in Higher Education in 2021 from the University of Arizona’s Center for the Study of Higher Education where her dissertation focused on the experiences of faculty from traditionally marginalized backgrounds teaching about privilege and oppression. She has over a decade of teaching experience at K-12 and college levels and was honored with numerous awards including 2020-21 Dr. Maria Velez Diversity LeadershiScholarshiand the 2021 Arizona Women in Higher Education Emerging Leader Award. Dr. Atkins attributes her passion for mentoring to the support she received from her multiple mentors. Her most recent publication is a chapter entitled Teaching Up: Bringing my Blackness to the Classroom in Picture a Professor: Interrupting Biases about Faculty and Increasing Student Learning.