Three Years In: Reflections on Successes, Challenges, and Next Steps for an Employee-Led Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Working Group at a National Lab
Description:
Along with many scientific organizations, the Earth and Environmental Sciences Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) spearheaded a diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility working group in 2020 called Geoscientists United for Diversity Equity and Inclusion (GUIDE). We are volunteer-led and open to all employees in our division; our membership includes ~10% of our division employees as well as our division leadership. The goals of GUIDE are to recruit and retain a more diverse staff by building a more inclusive and accessible workplace, community building, and outreach. In this presentation, we share successes that include collaborations with employee-organized affinity groups across the lab, examples of resources we have developed and distributed, and initiatives we recommend implementing elsewhere. We will share challenges that provide learning opportunities for others and encourage broader community feedback that we can implement locally.
The strength of our organization lies in community-building activities and the active engagement of management. Our membership skews more early-career than our division as a whole; and those of us with typically underrepresented identities in the geosciences (by race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, religion, and intersections thereof) are overrepresented within our membership. Much of our learning comes from our dynamic group discussions that are informed by a common code of conduct and the experiences of our members. We both mentor and learn from GUIDE members and external resources to advocate for our colleagues and strive to create structural changes within our division, the National Laboratory system, and the geosciences more generally. We plan to initiate more public outreach through this presentation, involve underrepresented institutions, and encourage participation by current LANL staff, external collaborators, and others interested in applying for opportunities at LANL.
Session: Transforming our Seismological Community through Inclusive Mentorship and Diverse Narratives [Poster]
Type: Poster
Date: 4/18/2023
Presentation Time: 08:00 AM (local time)
Presenting Author: Chris G. Carr
Student Presenter: No
Invited Presentation:
Authors
Chris Carr Presenting Author Corresponding Author cgcarr@lanl.gov Los Alamos National Laboratory |
Ryan Crumley rcrumley@lanl.gov Los Alamos National Laboratory |
Neala Creasy nmcreasy@lanl.gov Los Alamos National Laboratory |
Nishath Rajiv Ranasinghe ranasinghe@lanl.gov Los Alamos National Laboratory |
Jonas Kintner jkintner@lanl.gov Los Alamos National Laboratory |
Richard Alfaro-Diaz rad@lanl.gov Los Alamos National Laboratory |
Kevin Kwong kbkwong@lanl.gov Los Alamos National Laboratory |
Adam Collins acollins@lanl.gov Los Alamos National Laboratory |
Alex Jonko ajonko@lanl.gov Los Alamos National Laboratory |
Clara W Stanbury cstanbur@lanl.gov Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, United States |
Three Years In: Reflections on Successes, Challenges, and Next Steps for an Employee-Led Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Working Group at a National Lab
Category
Transforming our Seismological Community through Inclusive Mentorship and Diverse Narratives