Dina Myers Stroud is the executive director of the Fisk-Vanderbilt Master’s to Ph.D. Bridge Program, whose mission is to increase the number of underrepresented minorities in the STEM workforce and academe. Dr. Stroud is a research assistant professor in the Departments of Physics and Astronomy and Medicine at Vanderbilt University and adjunct assistant professor of Physics at Fisk. Stroud received B.A. degrees in zoology and women’s studies from Ohio Wesleyan University and earned her Ph.D. in molecular biology from Vanderbilt. After postdoctoral fellowships at the University of California, Los Angeles and New York University, Stroud returned to Vanderbilt in 2007. At Vanderbilt, her research focuses on cardiovascular genetics using mouse models of heart disease. She joined the Fisk-Vanderbilt Executive Team in 2012 and has overseen significant growth in the program and generated tools to improve student mentoring and tracking.