Dina Verdin will present a paper titled, "STEM Roles: How Students’ Ontological Perspectives Facilitate STEM Identities," at the 2016 Annual International Conference for the National Association for Research in Science Teaching. This paper explores how students describe the ways in which they perceive what it means to be a "science person," "math person," "physics person," or "engineer" and how these perceptions provide ways to develop particular STEM identities. This research fits with the conference theme, "Toward Equity and Justice: Many Different Voices, Cultures, and Languages in Science Education Research for Quality Science Learning and Teaching," and provides ways to develop diverse students' identities in STEM.