DEI Statement
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I am a first-generation female student from a low-income background that has experienced upward mobility due to my university education. My own identity and experiences have built within me a strong passion for promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in academia. Diversity to me means recruiting and retaining more diverse people across “the pipeline.” Equity means providing resources for historically excluded groups ranging from fiscal resources to time/mentoring resources, to adjusting pedagogy, and beyond. Inclusion means fostering true belonging and community. These actions must take place at the individual, programmatic, institutional, funding, professional society, and journal levels. I also believe that extension is crucial for disseminating results in understandable ways outside the “ivory tower.” I have personally contributed to many of these stages and will continue to do so. My passion and commitment to DEI is demonstrated by a range of activities from leading a group of historically excluded scholars in research on bias in peer review, to creating opportunities for building inclusive community to foster belonging in academia, to serving on committees aimed at promoting DEI, to extensive community outreach and extension work (see CV for details).
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Research and mentorship: My largest DEI initiative is single-handedly starting and leading the Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior Collaborative Research Group at Michigan State University (MSU), which was comprised of 19 graduate students and postdocs from historically excluded backgrounds. My group conducted research on bias in peer review, which is important because high-impact and voluminous publications are vital for advancing scientists’ careers all the way from starting a graduate degree through retirement. The tangible product from my experiential learning group was a meta-analysis on bias in peer review (Smith et al. (2023) Nat Ecol & Evol), but importantly, participants also gained an in-depth knowledge of inequity in scientific publishing. Our manuscript leveraged peer review data from 312,740 biological sciences manuscripts across 31 studies to (1) examine evidence for bias in peer review due to author demographics; (2) evaluate the efficacy of solutions to reduce bias; and (3) describe the current landscape of peer review policies. We found notably worse review outcomes (e.g., lower overall acceptance rates) for authors whose institutional affiliations were in Asia, whose country’s primary language is not English, and in countries with relatively low Human Development Indices. We found few data evaluating efficacy of interventions outside of reducing gender bias through double-blind review or diversifying reviewer/editorial boards. Despite evidence for review outcome gaps based on author demographics, few journals currently implement policies intended to mitigate bias. The lack of demographic equity signals an urgent need to better understand and implement evidence-based bias mitigation strategies. My group currently has a second manuscript in review at TREE that documents who is conducting peer review bias research and suggests pathways to expand data access to a greater diversity of researchers that would expedite our ability to identify and implement the most equitable peer review policies. I have directly translated what we learned into my own peer reviewing and publication practices. For example, as an Associate Editor, I now strive to find diverse reviewers for manuscripts.
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While the manuscripts my research group created have clear implications for promoting DEI, the group also provides training opportunities for participants. Through experiential learning, my group teaches graduate students collaboration skills, general research skills such as meta-analysis and writing, and navigation of the publication process. The group “course work” then culminates in actual publications that serve as tangible assets for students competing for jobs. Groups like mine are important to provide opportunities for participants to practice working in research groups and coauthor publications, which would otherwise depend on their individual labs. The ultimate goal of my group is to teach skills that can be taken into participants’ primary work and provide participants with a deeper understanding of DEI issues we need to rectify as scientists.
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Community building: In addition to my DEI research and mentoring, I am interested in proactively fostering a greater sense of community in academia to promote inclusion and feelings of true belonging, which I struggled with as a first-generation student. Accordingly, I have created a variety of community building initiatives. For example, during my PhD, I created a Social Committee for my graduate student organization, a graduate student research group, and a preliminary exam study group. My social committee hosted a range of events, spanning various times of day to accommodate people from various life stages. In my current position at MSU, I started monthly birding events in response to hearing that community members felt socially isolated during COVID. Further, a primary goal of my MSU collaborative research group was to build community belonging by fostering an inclusive and welcoming collaborative environment.
Service: In addition to the initiatives I started, I have contributed to other DEI committees, programs, and panels. For example, I served as a graduate student representative for one year on Washington State University's Commission on the Status of Women. Additionally, I am a McNair Scholar and have served as a panelist at multiple sessions that aimed to help McNair Scholars better prepare for graduate school. The McNair Scholars Program is important for promoting equity and is designed to prepare undergraduate students for doctoral programs that are first-generation with financial need and/or are BIPOC. I have also been part of group interviews aimed at fostering DEI at the University of Georgia and for the American Ornithological Society. Recently, I have been invited to speak on three panels about my peer review bias research (listed on page 10 of CV).
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Continued learning: I am also always interested in broadly furthering my DEI education. For example, at my current institution, I am a member of a STEM education journal group wherein we meet monthly to discuss research on making teaching more inclusive and equitable. I have directly transcribed the research we discuss into improving my student/postdoc meta-analysis group. For example, “randomly calling on students” has been shown to disadvantage students with disabilities (Cooper et al. (2021) CBE—Life Sciences Education), so I have moved my group’s discussions to fully voluntary contributions. Participants can “write in” ideas or contribute in other forms besides sharing ideas verbally with the full group.
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