Diversity Equity Inclusion Accessibility in STEM
I'm very excited and passionate about DEIA in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). I am a member of the DEI Advocacy Group of the Genetics Society of America, and part of the Committee on Diversity Task Force at the Carl. R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology.
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I strongly support the equality of all people. Each person, including myself, has a responsibility to protect human dignity and promote positive personal growth. In my personal and academic life, I strive to support diversity in all aspects of representation, promote and encourage a culture of inclusiveness, and employ teaching strategies that will build respect, dignity, fairness and equity.
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Below are some of the projects that I am part, and a list of resources to help support DEIA in STEM.
Diversifying and Decolonizing Syllabi in Life and Environmental Sciences
(please see my publication list for the associated article)
Want class materials to help diversify your syllabi in the life or environmental sciences?
I'm part of a group that created a list of resources that we developed as a starting point for diversifying and decolonizing syllabi in the life and environmental sciences.
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Specifically, our goals were to:
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Develop a list of college-level resources (articles, podcasts, videos, etc) that can be used as teaching tools in undergraduate classrooms. These resources may cover topics of racial justice, traditional ecological knowledge, environmental racism, and other related topics.
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We also seek to recognize both historical and current contributions of BIPOC* to science through increased representation in syllabi.
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We also will provide resources to support instructors who seek to include any of these ideas topics in their classrooms.
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*We are using the term Black, Indigenous, and People of Color because our goal is to explicitly center Black and Indigenous perspectives in our efforts to include more people of color in our syllabi. However, we are generally interested in any resources that may be used to discuss or counter oppression.
Including BIPOC scientists and writers in readings and lectures has been shown to increase a sense of belonging for minoritized students in predominantly White spaces (O’Brien et al., 2020). Efforts to diversify and decolonize syllabi are aimed at helping to address the erasure of Black and Indigenous peoples and perspectives in the life and environmental sciences by amplifying their voices. We aim to showcase both BIPOC excellence and joy while also including works that acknowledge how certain voices have been systematically erased, devalued, and excluded.
The list we are sharing here is a curated list of resources we have discussed as a group. We also have a much longer list of potential resources that have not been fully discussed yet that we would be happy to share that for private use. We always welcome any feedback at DiversifySyllabi@gmail.com.
Queering Sex Determination
People often incorrectly view sex determination as a simple biological fact, but this conceptualization of sex is oversimplified and inaccurate. I am part of a group that created a presentation that pushes back on these narratives by introducing aspects of sex determination and assignment in humans and wildlife with the aim to highlight the methods, variance, and complexity of sex assignment in wildlife.
We hope this work can help counter the recent increase in trans- and intersex-exclusive arguments and legislation, often based in oversimplified beliefs about binary sex assignment and gender identity. Through this presentation, we hope that people will expand their understanding of sex determination to be more expansive and more supportive of intersex and transgender identities with the understanding that science should not gatekeep gender identities. We approach this through wildlife ecology, genetics, and the social sciences.
Check out this recorded talk by Nathan Alexander, and please feel free to reach out to me, or fill in the feedback form
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