Anthony Butterfield
He/Him | They/Them
I am gay and I am a chemical engineer.//
I came out as gay at the age of 15 in suburban Utah. The challenges of the 1990’s engineering campus and the workplace for LGBTQ+ engineers convinced me to get my PhD, hoping gain a bit more bias-interrupting power in the engineering workplace. I became lecturing faculty in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Utah around 2008. It was a huge relief that, in that time, the engineering workplace climate improved dramatically, and my department has become a strong supporter of its queer students and staff.
I am the founding chair for the American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ LGBTQ+ Committee, the 2021 chair of the American Society for Engineering Education’ Chemical Engineering Division, and the founding faculty advisor of the University of Utah’s oSTEM chapter. My research has focused primarily on engineering education. In particular, I have centered on project-based active learning and makerspaces, particularly as applied to first-year chemical engineering students; retention of underrepresented groups; and STEM community outreach and citizen scientist efforts.