Lauren N. Irwin is an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, with a primary focus on teaching within the College Student Personnel and Higher Education programs. Lauren completed her Ph.D. in Higher Education and Student Affairs at the University of Iowa. Lauren conducts critical and collaborative research to improve higher education and student affairs, empowering both students and practitioners. Lauren’s research focuses on (1) critical examination of racialization and whiteness in higher education; and (2) fostering equity and inclusion in college student leadership education efforts. Her scholarship, featured in prestigious publications including the American Educational Research Journal, Review of Higher Education, Journal of College Student Development, and The Handbook of Higher Education, has also contributed to recent edited volumes like New Directions for Student Leadership, Critical Whiteness Praxis: Considerations for the Pursuit of Racial Justice in Higher Education, and A Research Agenda for Learning and Developing Leadership in Higher Education. Lauren’s 2019 co-authored article, “Strengths so White: Interrogating StrengthsQuest Through a Critical Whiteness Lens,” the most downloaded in the Journal of Critical Scholarship in Higher Education and Student Affairs since its publication.