Darris R. Means, Ph.D. is a Professor of Educational Leadership at Clemson University, and he is the President-Elect of the National Rural Education Association. His research focuses on rural education, STEM education, and postsecondary education access and opportunity. Darris uses critical, participatory, and visual methods to engage in his research. Darris has published over 45 peer-reviewed articles, reports, and book chapters, and he is the co-editor of Race & Rurality: Considerations for Advancing Higher Education Equity. He has secured more than $1.3 million in external funding. Most recently, he was awarded a National Science Foundation grant as the Principal Investigator of a participatory action research study focused on rural students and postsecondary science degree persistence. Darris was recently invited and selected by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to serve on the National Board on Science Education.