Diversity, Equity, Inclusion
As a university professor, one of my most important responsibilities is to create an environment in which ALL students, regardless of race, creed, cultural tradition, gender identity, political persuasion or neurodiverse experience can learn and progress towards reaching their potential. My students and advisees know that I am committed to helping them to thrive at Cornell and beyond graduation. There are many ways that people with my professional platform and privileged education can work to increase opportunities for all students. Below, I describe two initiatives that resonate most strongly with my experiences and values.
As a university professor, one of my most important responsibilities is to create an environment in which ALL students, regardless of race, creed, cultural tradition, gender identity, political persuasion or neurodiverse experience can learn and progress towards reaching their potential. My students and advisees know that I am committed to helping them to thrive at Cornell and beyond graduation. There are many ways that people with my professional platform and privileged education can work to increase opportunities for all students. Below, I describe two initiatives that resonate most strongly with my experiences and values.
[Left, celebrating with Zack Ballido, Eric Kohut and Bianca Beckwith, after a team presentation about Toxoplasma as part of the Biology Scholars Program at Cornell]
First, I work with many students who are the first in their families to attend college. Although I am a white man with an Ivy-league education and job, my grandparents emigrated from Italy to the United States roughly a century ago, during a volatile historical period when educational opportunities for Italian Americans were scarce. I am the first in my immediate family to earn a PhD, and I grew up in a working-class community in NJ where many of my peers were the first in their family to extend their education beyond high school. Thus, I feel a strong affinity for students in the Biology Scholars Program (BSP), many of whom have faced similar economic and cultural challenges on their paths to Cornell. I regularly mentor BSP students in how to digest research papers and present scientific seminars, provide tours of my lab and encourage my team to recruit BSP students as research assistants.
First, I work with many students who are the first in their families to attend college. Although I am a white man with an Ivy-league education and job, my grandparents emigrated from Italy to the United States roughly a century ago, during a volatile historical period when educational opportunities for Italian Americans were scarce. I am the first in my immediate family to earn a PhD, and I grew up in a working-class community in NJ where many of my peers were the first in their family to extend their education beyond high school. Thus, I feel a strong affinity for students in the Biology Scholars Program (BSP), many of whom have faced similar economic and cultural challenges on their paths to Cornell. I regularly mentor BSP students in how to digest research papers and present scientific seminars, provide tours of my lab and encourage my team to recruit BSP students as research assistants.
Second, I leverage professional and political power, whenever possible, to improve equity for women in the life sciences. I am not referring to activities that simply define being a good advisor, colleague, or collaborator. Rather, I refer to actions that change policy or awareness. As detailed elsewhere on this website (see “Professional Path”), I was trained by several women during my formative years as a student in the early-mid 1980s. Thus, I came to appreciate the formidable challenges that many women face in academic settings, and have worked with my colleagues and students to lower some of those barriers.
As chair of Cornell’s “AD White Professors-at-large” program, I was asked to identify an eminent woman biologist to fill an endowed speaker slot. Instead, I organized a symposium (April 2-3, 2012) to celebrate excellence among women in the life sciences and raised funds to invite 8 speakers, including National Academy of Sciences members, MacArthur Fellows and a Nobel Laureate.
https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2012/03/symposium-invites-leading-women-life-scientists
[Prof. Sharon Long (Stanford) kicks off the Frontiers in the Life Sciences Symposium, April 2012]
The crucial step was to form a steering committee with faculty colleagues and then to share the planning stages with an interdepartmental team of graduate students and postdocs. This inclusive approach led to enhanced opportunities for interaction with speakers at meals, a student poster session and student interviews that were published as guest blogs in Scientific American (see links below).
https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2012/03/symposium-invites-leading-women-life-scientists
[Prof. Sharon Long (Stanford) kicks off the Frontiers in the Life Sciences Symposium, April 2012]
The crucial step was to form a steering committee with faculty colleagues and then to share the planning stages with an interdepartmental team of graduate students and postdocs. This inclusive approach led to enhanced opportunities for interaction with speakers at meals, a student poster session and student interviews that were published as guest blogs in Scientific American (see links below).
[Left, Invited speakers, Profs. Pam Ronald (UC Davis) and Nicole Dubilier (Max-Planck-Institute for Marine Microbiology), discuss student posters at the Frontiers in the Life Sciences Symposium, April 2012]
Scientific American Guest Blogs:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/how-a-love-of-story-problems-changed-the-world-of-breast-cancer/
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/bacteria-talk-plants-listen-the-discovery-of-plant-immune-receptors-an-interview-with-dr-pamela-ronald/
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/serendipity-and-science-30-minutes-with-dr-sharon-long/
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-co-evolution-of-insects-plants-and-a-career/
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/from-babies-to-baboons-one-womans-path-to-success/
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/at-home-underwater-and-on-land-a-conversation-with-dr-mary-power/
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/joy-comes-with-discovery-a-conversation-with-linda-buck-phd/
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/empirically-dancing-your-way-to-the-top-how-nicole-dubilier-does-it/
Scientific American Guest Blogs:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/how-a-love-of-story-problems-changed-the-world-of-breast-cancer/
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/bacteria-talk-plants-listen-the-discovery-of-plant-immune-receptors-an-interview-with-dr-pamela-ronald/
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/serendipity-and-science-30-minutes-with-dr-sharon-long/
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-co-evolution-of-insects-plants-and-a-career/
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/from-babies-to-baboons-one-womans-path-to-success/
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/at-home-underwater-and-on-land-a-conversation-with-dr-mary-power/
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/joy-comes-with-discovery-a-conversation-with-linda-buck-phd/
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/empirically-dancing-your-way-to-the-top-how-nicole-dubilier-does-it/
Similarly, during my tenure as NBB chair (2014-2018), the early stages of the #MeToo movement drew attention to the risks of sexual assault faced by women researchers in remote field settings. I reached out to the dean of the Graduate College and the chairs of our sister departments (EEB and Entomology), and together we convened a task force to create a set of best practices for women leaving campus for field research. Again, a key step was to empower our graduate students and postdocs to contribute substantively to the planning as well as the policy debate, granting them agency in the outcome.
Finally, as a member of the Board of Advisers for the International Society for Chemical Ecology (ISCE), I am frequently asked to organize symposia for annual meetings and to provide editorial guidance for the society’s journal. I agreed to do so for the 2016 meeting in Iguassu Falls, Brazil, because it was a joint meeting with the Asociación Latino Americana de Ecología Química (ALAEQ), a sister organization of Latin American chemical ecologists. Rather than focusing on specific themes (e.g. pheromone chemistry or symbiosis), our symposium highlighted international collaboration, featuring early career women (and men) from 6 countries as invited speakers. The most valuable part of this symposium was the extended dinner conversation that followed, in which speakers could compare experiences and forge new friendships.
[Right, post-symposium speaker's dinner at the joint ISCE-ALAEQ meeting in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, July 2016, representing Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay]
I have spent much of my professional life as a guest and collaborator across Latin America, which has given me great happiness and a deep sense of gratitude towards my hosts and colleagues across the hemisphere. I try to pay this forward by teaching in bilingual workshops, organizing new collaborative teams and training my colleagues and their students in the methods of our shared field. I detail these activities elsewhere on this website (see "Teaching" and "Capacity Building").
[Right, post-symposium speaker's dinner at the joint ISCE-ALAEQ meeting in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, July 2016, representing Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay]
I have spent much of my professional life as a guest and collaborator across Latin America, which has given me great happiness and a deep sense of gratitude towards my hosts and colleagues across the hemisphere. I try to pay this forward by teaching in bilingual workshops, organizing new collaborative teams and training my colleagues and their students in the methods of our shared field. I detail these activities elsewhere on this website (see "Teaching" and "Capacity Building").