Session L01: Focus Session: Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for Beginners

In recent years, efforts surrounding issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) have come to the forefront of discussions within the Physics community. In order to best serve a rapidly diversifying student population and to attract and retain the best available talent to Physics, it is crucial that faculty take pro-active steps to make our classrooms as welcoming and accessible as possible to a wide variety of students. Achieving this is, of course, easier said than done and spending time thinking about and addressing DEI issues can at times seem at odds with completing other tasks that have bigger professional repercussions (e.g. grant writing). Furthermore, the rapidly evolving nature of the DEI discussions can make stepping into this territory seem daunting. In this talk, I present some simple, proven strategies with which faculty that want to make their classrooms more welcoming and accessible but are not sure where to start can begin to address DEI issues in their classroom. An emphasis will be placed on approaches that are easy to implement and require minimal time to prepare and implement. I will also highlight some resources where faculty can stay abreast of the latest research surrounding DEI issues in the Physics community without spending a lot of time doing a deep dive into the relevant literature.

    

Women in Fluids: Toward a More Inclusive DFD

Women are underrepresented in physics, and fluid dynamics is no exception. On average, only 10-15% of the attendees of the annual APS DFD meeting are women. Women continue to experience challenges in promotions, and in receiving grants and awards. While representation is improving over time, these issues can lead women in fluid dynamics–especially at early career stages–to feel discouraged and isolated, particularly when considered in concert with obstacles faced at their home institutions and in society at large. These issues are further exacerbated for other underrepresented groups, and are often intersectional. Here, we discuss lessons learned from over a decade of attending and organizing the annual Women in Fluids lunch, including recurring themes and concerns most commonly raised by attendees. We propose recommended improvements and concrete strategies for making the DFD a more inclusive and equitable scientific society for all members. We will emphasize the importance of 1) both formal and informal networking, 2) personal and professional support structures for society members, and 3) increasing the presence of all underrepresented groups at all levels of the DFD.   

How academic institutions can help address Wikipedia's biases

With over 250 million views each day, Wikipedia is one of the most visited websites in the world and is also an invaluable educational resource. Today, the English language Wikipedia holds over 1.5 million biographies, yet only about 19% of them are about women. This gender gap reflects the biases of Wikipedia's volunteer editors as well as the world's systemic inequalities. Who edits Wikipedia truly matters: while anyone can edit Wikipedia, only about 20% of editors self-identify as female. Editors also face recurring challenges including difficulties in meeting Wikipedia's notability criteria for scientists and academics and finding freely licensed photos of scientists, as well as navigating higher rates of deletion for pages of women and LGBTQ+ folks. While Wikipedia is propelled through grassroots efforts by design, institutions can play a crucial role in furthering equity on the encyclopedia. In this talk, I will discuss what institutions can do to address Wikipedia's biases and will ask the DFD2022 audience to join a collective effort to improve the pages of fluid mechanicists, especially those from groups traditionally underrepresented in science.   

Building Diversity, Inclusion and Equity Through Educational Interventions: A Case of Experiential Learning and STEM Career Preparation in the Six-week Summer Institute for Sustainability & Climate Change at Purdue University

Within STEM fields, diversity, inclusion, and equity have been an ongoing challenge. Building a STEM pipeline through a multidisciplinary, international team of faculty and students, where an intervention was designed to educate, train, and prepare minority and disenfranchised groups for careers in STEM research through a six-week Summer Institute for Sustainability and Climate Change. This institute included a total of 62 fellows that included high school, undergraduate and graduate students. The design and successful execution of the institute were based on, 1) integration of social sciences with STEM field to look at climate change and diversity, 2) creating network and new collaborations amongst fellows and professors – a model of trust building, 3) creating experiential learning projects based on teams and vertical integrated mentoring, 4) encouraging research projects that lead to innovation and 5) creating opportunities and an adaptable environment for the minority and disenfranchised groups to adjust with the pace and rhythm of the institute.   

Gender in STEM Research and Innovation: An Intervention

Most STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) academic practices fail to take gender into account because they treat men as default and women as atypical. As a consequence, bias and discrimination are baked into our systems. It is critical to include gender studies in STEM education and provide effective interventions to address this problem. Through gender lens inclusion, student researchers will become more equipped to design technology and create solutions that address the intersectionality of gender, race, ethnicity, class, age, and sexual orientation. One potential strategy is to incorporate active and experiential learning methods that allow participants to discover knowledge about subtle gender bias on their own, rather than being passive recipients of information. This will increase awareness without eliciting defensiveness or the belief that nothing can be done to remedy bias. In our pilot study, a workshop is used for positively influencing the participants' perspectives. The intervention has two objectives: 1) Raise awareness about the need to look at research through a gender lens, and 2) Nudge student researchers in STEM to encompass a gender dimension in technology and innovation. Mixed methods qualitative tools are used for data collection and analysis.   

Climate Change, Mass Migration and Gender: A non-linear complexity

The dimensions of climate, migration and gender are highly correlated in a complex, non-linear fashion. Recent amplification in climate change has exacerbated the pre-existing economic, political, environmental, social and demographic problems. These act as drivers of forced or voluntary mass migration. The impacts are not felt equally across populations while disproportionately affecting different genders. It is crucial that this correlation is better understood. Our study is built on an analytical model where we focus on proposing a solution/ alleviation measures to the climate driven migration and gender impacts through STEM research and innovation. We begin by reducing the dimensionality of problem and selecting 2 developing countries each, from Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and South Asia for our field work. The selection criteria includes GDP per capita, population density, mobility projections, vulnerability index, climate-risk index and so on. Then, climate driven gender variability in these countries is studied through mixed methods qualitative tools. The model established in this study can be replicable in nature and applied to other vulnerable nations as well as help in correct allocation, direction and maximized use of regional sustainable resources.   

Invisible Factors Impacting Efforts in Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion: Addressing Climate Change and Sustainability

Multiple factors influence minority and disenfranchised communities. These are invisible agents - blocking progress in efforts to obtain diversity, equity, and inclusion. One such invisible area is climate change and sustainability. Poorer nations or disenfranchised groups (racial and ethnic minority groups, women, people with disabilities, first-generation college students) have less access to clean, sustainable energy, and are more impacted by pollution, power outages, and sanitation which create detrimental health outcomes that further increase their marginalization. Our team has developed a 4-pronged model of how to develop inclusive environments and programs based on an engaged research model; 1) Conduct social research integrated to engineering to understand the unique context and feelings of the minority group without making assumptions, 2) Work with the marginalized and minority group to do-develop a solution that leverages their strengths, 3) While building the program or educational opportunity, consistently consider the realities faced by the group/s and accommodate them through logistics and planning, 4) Integrate and encourage minority and disenfranchised groups to become a part of the solution by working to tackle these issues within their own communities.