Suzanne Zurn-Birkhimer has spent her career diligently working towards broadening the participation of women and underrepresented groups in STEM fields. She is the associate director of WiE where she leads retention efforts and conducts research around student success. She manages the undergraduate and graduate mentoring programs that reach over 1,000 students annually, instructs Women in Engineering courses and oversees the WiE/WISP tutoring center and WiE residential community. She also holds a courtesy associate professor appointment in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) where she occasionally teaches introductory atmospheric science courses.

Zurn-Birkhimer's research focuses around understanding the barriers and pathways to success for typically marginalized groups in STEM. She is working to understand the intricacies of undergraduate student's successful navigation to their degrees as well as continually adapting the retention programming she oversees. Zurn-Birkhimer also studies the career pathways of indigenous women to better inform practices and policies in the workforce. In 2019, she was appointed to the advisory board of the international organization Diversity in Organizations, Communities, and Nations Research Network. She is also serving as the Program Chair-Elect (2024-2026) for the Women in Engineering Division of the American Society of Engineering Education, after formerly serving as a Director-At-Large (2023) for the division.

She has held several positions across academia including deputy director of Purdue's NSF-ADVANCE initiative to increase the number of female faculty in the STEM fields and associate professor and co-chair of Mathematics at Saint Joseph's College in Rensselaer, Indiana, where she implemented a curriculum revision and developed a Mathematics-Engineering dual degree program.

Zurn-Birkhimer earned her BS in Mathematics from the University of Minnesota and an MS and PhD in atmospheric science from Purdue University. She was awarded the 2012 Outstanding Alumni Award from EAPS and the 2019 Distinguished Alumni Award from the Purdue University College of Science.