UW-MENTOR: Mentoring toward Equitable, Novel & Transdisciplinary Outcomes of Research

Although individual scientists, universities, professional societies, and major funders are committed to inclusivity and discipline-spanning work, diversity initiatives are falling short in STEM and academia, and innovation programs haven’t informed STEM practices as much as hoped.

Better mentoring is key, because it is actually the combination of systemic issues and negative personal experiences that drive people out of academia. Since underrepresented minorities’ research is disproportionately transdisciplinary and public facing, the loss compounds.

Through several initiatives including inclusivity-in-STEM reading groups, a department-level climate survey, playing a leadership role in UW’s 2021-2022 strategic planning process, and several more efforts at and beyond UW, I’m collaborating on and leading efforts to : (1) leverage apprenticeship and critique practices in the arts to enhance research mentorship in STEM; (2) shift paradigms around systems-to-individual-level change and social justice in academia, STEM, and scicomm; and (3) coach developing mentors to address systemic issues of social justice and DEIJ in academia and STEM through a holistic approach to mentoring.

This work is supported in part by the Wyoming INBRE program and an NSF EPSCoR Track II award (UNL-Lincoln).