As a lab and academic community, we recognize that institutionalized discrimination - based on race, gender identity, disability, sexual orientation, age, and socioeconomic status, among other traits - persists in STEM spaces. Our lab culture and research are improved when we celebrate and learn from different backgrounds and perspectives. As researchers, academics, and students, we are responsible for recruiting, retaining, and supporting a more diverse lab membership. We know that the experiences and worldviews of a racially, socioeconomically, and otherwise culturally diverse group of people enrich our STEM community. We strive to provide equitable opportunities for members of the UC Davis community. HRVIP commits to creating and maintaining a safe, welcoming, and open community for individuals who seek to keep humans alive in extreme and highly hazardous environments.
We acknowledge that HRVIP’s racial diversity can be improved to maintain and foster an environment that benefits all students. We will use self-reported racial identity statistics in conjunction with publicly reported statistics1 to continuously and transparently monitor our commitment to recruiting and retaining a racially diverse lab membership because racial demographics are a major aspect of how diversity is experienced. That being said, rather than meeting a specific quota, we aim to create an open and trusting environment where lab members may hold an honest discussion about DEIA and lab culture.
Actions & Initiatives
Facilities
Our primary lab space is in a university-leased location off-campus, and therefore does not fall under the same building standards as those on campus. We are actively working with facilities management to:
- Create inclusive bathroom environments for lab members of all gender identities.
- Implement The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)-compliant push buttons at the doors to the building, lab spaces, and bathrooms.
- Meet UC Davis/ADA standards for emergency exit routes accessibility.
Karen Mae
I was born and raised in Queens, New York, also known as "The World's Borough". I grew up in communities where it was easy to see the difference in the treatments of different groups based on race, class, and gender. Living across New York, California, Texas, and the Philippines these past two years only enhanced these views. My own experience with lack of opportunity and accessibility to typical avenues of success, such as education, shaped my passion to uphold DEIA principles in all spaces I encounter. DEIA to me means removing the barriers that have held my communities and I back. DEIA matters to me because I know what it feels like to be held back because of different parts of my identity. I want to do what I can and look after my community- to make sure people who come after me don't go through the same thing.
Education
- We hope to create the infrastructure for a fellowship to support lab members who lead research projects and community engagement activities specific to DEIA. This fellowship could be modeled after a similar program from the UC Davis College of Biological Sciences.
- Every Friday, we host a lunchtime seminar. We are making a concerted effort to host seminar speakers from historically underrepresented backgrounds to share their knowledge and experience in their field.
- We host art students in our lab through a residency program to provide a mutual exchange of perspectives.
Representation
Brian
Inclusivity is safety. By celebrating diversity as a community, we make ourselves better at appreciating and protecting every individual.
We recognize the need for equitable opportunities and the importance of representation to helping our lab members thrive.
We aim to reflect the diverse identities of the greater UC Davis community—especially groups who are historically underrepresented in STEM—in all aspects of our lab through:
- Fostering substantive discussions: address topics around marginalization, underrepresentation, privilege, and individual lived experience in a way that cultivates growth.
- Candidate evaluation: when we interview potential new graduate student lab members, we use a structured process with standardized questions and evaluation metrics.
Mentoring
Mentoring is a proven strategy for student retention and long-term career success, and a long-standing part of HRVIP’s lab culture. In addition to mentorship from the project/team lead, new undergraduate student researchers, specifically students of color, will have the option to be paired with either an upper division or graduate student lab member of color. Through this mentorship we hope to embolden new undergraduate lab members and foster an inclusive lab environment.
Outreach
Through outreach we hope to provide exposure to underrepresented demographics, help students find their interests, and encourage them to pursue their academic interests, increasing the probability of their success.
- HRVIP supports outreach efforts to local elementary, middle, and high schools, including career day events, in-classroom STEM enrichment activities, and field trips through the STEM Outreach for Academic Reinforcement (SOAR) program. For more information about our year-round outreach program, SOAR, click here.
- We have reached out to collaborate with student clubs for folks who have historically been underrepresented in STEM. If your club is interested in partnering with the HRVIP Lab, please reach out to a member of our lab leadership team!
Awareness
We have DEIA meetings on a minimum of a quarterly basis to allow for discussion, raising new issues, revisiting ongoing ones, evaluating our success toward the metrics we set for ourselves, and updating this living document.
Academic Responsibility
When conducting experiments to create scientific insight, we recognize that we have a societal and individual responsibility to continually educate ourselves about potential data biases related to subject gender, identity, disability, and biology. Accordingly, during our research investigations, the UC Davis HRVIP Lab will expend all reasonable efforts to recruit a mix of subjects with an equal number (to within 5% of the total selected subject pool) of subjects who report a gender identity of “female” or “male”. Subjects that do not self-identify as “female” or “male” shall be categorized in the gender identity according to CDC guidelines 2 or that they prefer. The reporting of subject demographics will include the breakdown by gender identity. For investigations that are not able to meet the target gender identity balance, HRVIP researchers shall describe in reports and publications the rationale for accepting a non-equal gender identity mix of subject participants. HRVIP is discussing taking a similar approach to recruit subjects with an equal number of participants from racial backgrounds.
Our Goals
In an effort to continuously grow toward a more diverse and inclusive lab community, we aim to hold each other accountable to meet these goals during the next school year (2024-2025).
- Update this DEIA webpage on a semi-annual basis with new insights, statistics, accomplishments, goals, and resources.
- Organize quarterly DEIA reading groups, inspired by other DEIA journal clubs such as the Anti-Racist Reading Groups | College of Biological Sciences (ucdavis.edu)
- Send out yearly DEIA climate surveys to our lab members over winter break. Summarize, report, and discuss the responses from the survey during the following winter quarter.
- Develop a strategy for respectfully and compassionately addressing concerns, whether they are voiced in the moment or noticed upon reflection at a later date.