Inclusion and Equity in Evolutionary Biology
Like all STEM fields, the field of evolutionary biology is not equally accessible to everyone. Barriers--systemic, institutional, departmental, and cultural--prevent young scientists from finding our field and staying in it once they're here. Substantial work is needed from all evolutionary biologists to break down the barriers to retention and recruitment that many encounter.
"...Equity work must be constant, honest, forgiving, reflective, and brave".
(From Tia Brown McNair, Estela Mara Bensimon, and Lindsay Malcom-Piqueux, From Equity Talk to Equity Walk: Expanding Practitioner Knowledge for Racial Justice in Higher Education)
Like all STEM fields, the field of evolutionary biology is not equally accessible to everyone. Barriers--systemic, institutional, departmental, and cultural--prevent young scientists from finding our field and staying in it once they're here. Substantial work is needed from all evolutionary biologists to break down the barriers to retention and recruitment that many encounter.
"...Equity work must be constant, honest, forgiving, reflective, and brave".
(From Tia Brown McNair, Estela Mara Bensimon, and Lindsay Malcom-Piqueux, From Equity Talk to Equity Walk: Expanding Practitioner Knowledge for Racial Justice in Higher Education)
Equity and inclusion in professional societies
Since 2013, I've been involved with the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE)--first as the first graduate student representative and founder of the Graduate Student Advisory Council, which represents students and postdocs to the society's governing council, then as a member and (now former) co-chair of the SSE Diversity Committee.
The Diversity Committee provides opportunities for identity groups to network and organize, offers inclusivity and diversity themed events at the yearly Evolution conference, represents an equity and inclusion perspective during Council deliberations, and spearheads data collection and analysis to support equity and inclusion. Currently our main focus is on examining and dismantling the barriers to equity that SSE itself has created or contributed to. This process incorporates feedback from hired experts as well as members of historically excluded communities, through demographic data collection and an upcoming climate survey and round table discussions. See our first publication on demographics of SSE and its sister societies ASN (the American Society of Naturalists) and SSB (the Society for Systematic Biologists) here.
Select resources for learning more:
Beronda Montgomery's Equity Reading List
Institutional barriers, strategies, and benefits to increasing the representation of women and men of color in the professoriate (Griffin 2020)
The Elephant in the Room: Race and STEM Diversity (Miriti 2020)
Why are there so few ethnic minorities in ecology and evolutionary biology? (O'Brien et al. 2019)
From Equity Talk to Equity Walk: Expanding Practitioner Knowledge for Racial Justice in Higher Education (McNair et al. 2020)
Since 2013, I've been involved with the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE)--first as the first graduate student representative and founder of the Graduate Student Advisory Council, which represents students and postdocs to the society's governing council, then as a member and (now former) co-chair of the SSE Diversity Committee.
The Diversity Committee provides opportunities for identity groups to network and organize, offers inclusivity and diversity themed events at the yearly Evolution conference, represents an equity and inclusion perspective during Council deliberations, and spearheads data collection and analysis to support equity and inclusion. Currently our main focus is on examining and dismantling the barriers to equity that SSE itself has created or contributed to. This process incorporates feedback from hired experts as well as members of historically excluded communities, through demographic data collection and an upcoming climate survey and round table discussions. See our first publication on demographics of SSE and its sister societies ASN (the American Society of Naturalists) and SSB (the Society for Systematic Biologists) here.
Select resources for learning more:
Beronda Montgomery's Equity Reading List
Institutional barriers, strategies, and benefits to increasing the representation of women and men of color in the professoriate (Griffin 2020)
The Elephant in the Room: Race and STEM Diversity (Miriti 2020)
Why are there so few ethnic minorities in ecology and evolutionary biology? (O'Brien et al. 2019)
From Equity Talk to Equity Walk: Expanding Practitioner Knowledge for Racial Justice in Higher Education (McNair et al. 2020)
Equity and inclusion in the classroom
My teaching experience has always centered inclusion. As a graduate student, I co-taught two courses on management and professional development, targeted toward grad students. These courses served multiple purposes: to break down the hidden barriers to productivity and happiness in science, and to help students reframe their own mentorship experiences to build positive experiences for their future mentees.
In March 2020, I taught Introduction to Evolution at UC Davis in an online format to 200 undergraduates sheltering in place due to COVID-19. At each step of course design and implementation, equity and inclusion led my decisions. To allow for variable internet access and work schedules, learning assessments were take-home style with a 24-hour turnaround and no longer than an in-class exam. To ensure equal grading across assignments, an area prone to bias, grading was conducted via Gradescope (with each grader grading specific questions, rather than a portion of the student population). My own behavior changed as well--instructor behavior and language affects student outcomes (Seidel et al. 2017, Harrison et al. 2019, Harrison and Tanner 2018) and spring 2020 had layers of stressors for each student. I checked in regularly, affirmed students' experiences, and reiterated that they belonged.
Select resources for learning more:
Culturally relevant pedagogy: A model to guide cultural transformation in STEM departments (Johnson and Elliott 2020)
How field courses propel inclusion and collective excellence (Zavaleta et al. 2020)
Structure matters: Twenty-one teaching strategies to promote student engagement and cultivate classroom equity (Tanner 2017)
All of Kimberly Tanner's work
My teaching experience has always centered inclusion. As a graduate student, I co-taught two courses on management and professional development, targeted toward grad students. These courses served multiple purposes: to break down the hidden barriers to productivity and happiness in science, and to help students reframe their own mentorship experiences to build positive experiences for their future mentees.
In March 2020, I taught Introduction to Evolution at UC Davis in an online format to 200 undergraduates sheltering in place due to COVID-19. At each step of course design and implementation, equity and inclusion led my decisions. To allow for variable internet access and work schedules, learning assessments were take-home style with a 24-hour turnaround and no longer than an in-class exam. To ensure equal grading across assignments, an area prone to bias, grading was conducted via Gradescope (with each grader grading specific questions, rather than a portion of the student population). My own behavior changed as well--instructor behavior and language affects student outcomes (Seidel et al. 2017, Harrison et al. 2019, Harrison and Tanner 2018) and spring 2020 had layers of stressors for each student. I checked in regularly, affirmed students' experiences, and reiterated that they belonged.
Select resources for learning more:
Culturally relevant pedagogy: A model to guide cultural transformation in STEM departments (Johnson and Elliott 2020)
How field courses propel inclusion and collective excellence (Zavaleta et al. 2020)
Structure matters: Twenty-one teaching strategies to promote student engagement and cultivate classroom equity (Tanner 2017)
All of Kimberly Tanner's work
Equity and inclusion in the mentor/mentee relationship
Our commitment to equity and inclusion is most obvious in how we maintain our relationships. When scientists transition to leading teams, we are largely unprepared for the weight our words and decisions hold, and the negative impacts unclear expectations have happiness and productivity of our teams.
NEW! For more information on how I plan to combat these issues in the Rushworth lab, see my mentorship philosophy and the "Lab Documents" page for the Rushworth Lab Guide and Rushworth Lab Compact.
Some of my mentorship goals include:
Select resources for learning more:
You're Hired! Now What? by Mohamed Noor
Lessons from Plants by Beronda Montgomery
Critical Mentoring: A Practical Guide by Torie Weiston-Serdan
Our commitment to equity and inclusion is most obvious in how we maintain our relationships. When scientists transition to leading teams, we are largely unprepared for the weight our words and decisions hold, and the negative impacts unclear expectations have happiness and productivity of our teams.
NEW! For more information on how I plan to combat these issues in the Rushworth lab, see my mentorship philosophy and the "Lab Documents" page for the Rushworth Lab Guide and Rushworth Lab Compact.
Some of my mentorship goals include:
- Prioritize the health and wellness of lab members, because without those things, the science doesn't happen
- Help mentees recognize their own progress through regular meetings, and realize their goals through individual development plans
- Maintain psychological safety and open lines of communication so that mentees can tell me what's working for them, and what's not
- Adapt my mentorship style to flexibly accommodate different learning styles and needs
- Break down the "hidden" aspects of academic science
Select resources for learning more:
You're Hired! Now What? by Mohamed Noor
Lessons from Plants by Beronda Montgomery
Critical Mentoring: A Practical Guide by Torie Weiston-Serdan