Category Archives: diversity

New section of my website: Resources

I have to admit, a draft of my new Resources page has been sitting around for more than year. I realized last week that it just needed a little bit of work to clean it up. It’s definitely a work in progress, but I think there are some useful links in there. The main sections right now are on mental health, diversity and accessibility, but I will be adding more content over time.

If you spot any problems or dead links, please let me know. And if you have any ideas of links or resources that I can add, that’s great too!

Black Lives Matter #shutdownSTEM

Today, June 10, 2020, scientists around the world are joining the #strike4BlackLives with #ShutdownSTEM. Both APS and AAAS have released statements condemning racism and have also announced their support for the strike.

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Join the new APS Forum on Diversity and Inclusion!

APS has a new forum dedicated to diversity and inclusion (announcement). This has been in the works for a while, but it’s finally approved and ready to join (for free for APS members). Join now to get in on the ground floor! Below I am copying the email I received with more details and signup instructions (sorry if the formatting is weird).

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NIH is experimenting with ‘cluster hiring’ in an attempt to boost diversity

In this week’s issue of Science they cover a new pilot program by NIH called FIRST that will fund ‘cluster hiring’, where a department hires 10 or more faculty in 1-2 years. The idea is that this will help cast a wider net and yield more junior faculty from underrepresented groups.

I can see how hiring in larger cohorts could make it easier to detect if there are biases, since have a cohort of 10 white men would set of alarm bells. Cluster hiring is unproven, but it’s promising and I’m very much looking forward to seeing what comes out of the pilot program.

Here’s the article (paywall): Science: NIH hopes ‘cluster hiring’ will improve diversity

Women are no better or worse than men at doing physics, but they are, however, more persistent.
Myriam P. Sarachik, 2020

Today I attended an awards dinner for several APS awards. Myriam P. Sarachik received the APS Medal for Exceptional Achievement in Research and gave a truly insightful acceptance speech and I just had to share this specific quote. She told a number of stories of the obstacles she faced to building a scientific career and how she overcame them through luck, talent and persistence. A great lesson for us all!