Gita Bangera

Dr. Bangera is the founding dean of the RISE Learning Institute, having developed it from concept to successful implementation to bring high-impact practices such as research, project, and service-based learning to students across all disciplines at Bellevue College in Washington. She has also served as the interim vice president of instruction and acting co-president of Bellevue College. She leads a team of faculty and staff in designing and constructing a state-of-the-art makerspace and the predesign of the Transdisciplinary Innovations Center.

Dr. Bangera obtained more than $1 million in grant funding from the National Science Foundation and helped obtain state funding for almost $1 million in state-of-the-art lab equipment. She is one of 39 PULSE leadership fellows impacting science education at the national level. She is the director of the ComGen project, which has created a community of practice for classroom-based undergraduate research experiences with faculty from 27 higher education institutions in Washington.

Dr. Bangera is also an inventor, technical consultant, and business owner, with 46 issued patents and over 110 patent applications. Previously, Dr. Bangera was a senior scientist at CombiMatrix Corporation and conducted postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School, University of Washington Medical School, and University of Copenhagen. She received her doctorate in microbiology at Washington State University, master’s in biology from Carnegie Mellon University, and master’s in microbiology from University of Mumbai.