RISKS AND REWARDS OF DOING DEI WORK IN GRAD SCHOOL

Geoscience is currently recognized as the least diverse of all STEM fields in the US. While attention has traditionally focused on K-12 and undergraduate populations, recent attention has shifted to include racial disparities in graduate school and beyond. In 2018, 0.4, 1.4, and 6.4 percent of geoscience PhDs awarded to US Citizens and permanent residents went to Native American, Black, and Hispanic or Latino students, respectively. Past studies have suggested that high attrition rates among these underrepresented minority (URM) groups can be attributed, in part, to doctoral programs that do not offer, facilitate, incentivize, or value student participation in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) activities that engage with a broader community. Despite these barriers/obstacles, URM early career geoscientists have often been at the forefront of promoting a more diverse, equitable and inclusive scientific community. In this talk the presenter will share her own experiences and motivations behind undertaking DEI efforts while in graduate school, in order to begin dialogue related to the following questions: How can graduate students pursue DEI activities while also “making progress” in their necessary research? How can graduate programs incentivize, facilitate and amplify these efforts? How can we get academic hiring committees to value this work? Are these necessary steps to attracting and retaining URM graduate students and early career faculty? Our answers to these questions may determine whether geoscience remains the least diverse of all STEM fields, or whether we can finally create a model that attracts, supports and retains URM scholars.