A sister to the successful Diversify Chemistry and Diversify EEB, developed by UM faculty, Diversify EARTH aims to help students, teachers, search committees, conference organizers, editors, etc. find Earth and environmental scientists who are from diverse backgrounds, by having people self-nominate to a list. This approach has been successful for the Departments of Chemistry and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and addresses the fact that our brains have poor recall of people we’re less familiar with, so we need to facilitate conscious efforts to ensure different viewpoints and experiences are being included and represented. For more information, contact Selena Smith.
SciAll’s mission is to expand and diversify public interest in science. They have two main goals: First, provide inspiration and guidance to students, particularly those from groups underrepresented in STEM, to help them understand the process of science and what it takes to succeed in STEM careers. And second, to make the scientific process accessible to a broad public audience, particularly among groups traditionally underrepresented in STEM fields, and groups that are traditionally skeptical of environmental science. To fulfill these aims, they connect the public directly to professional scientists, who volunteer as vloggers for our campaign. The team of scientists, from various backgrounds, create and freely disseminate online videos that showcase personal reflections and stories that convey the relatable, intuitive, and, often exhilarating, human side of scientific research. They use a vlog on YouTube to tell true personal stories of how we ended up in our scientific careers, what it’s actually like to do what we do (including the adventures and mishaps along the way), why what we do can save the world, and how aspiring scientists can join us. For more information, contact Jenan Kharbush.
