Statement About PI Involvement in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility

Evidence of Commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility

Please indicate how you foster and promote a culture of belonging and inclusion within your lab and the IRP community. “Belonging and inclusion” here refers to the IRP’s commitment to welcome, retain, and foster success in trainees and staff from a broad array of backgrounds, cultures, experiences, and perspectives. Please also describe how you foster professional/career development, promotion, and well-being of trainees and staff while considering their own cultures and experiences. Examples may include, but are not limited to, your mentoring of trainees from diverse backgrounds including trainees from underserved communities (see the Notice of NIH’s Interest in Diversity), ensuring pay equity, communications advancing inclusion and equity, your service on diversity, equity and inclusion committees at NIH or elsewhere (e.g., scientific societies, community organizations, etc.), methods for encouraging frequent trainee and staff feedback, and your participation, promotion, and engagement in training related to diversity, equity and inclusion, and social justice (e.g. implicit bias, best practices for hiring, culturally-aware mentorship, etc.) and ensuring that workspaces and technologies are fully accessible. Highlight strategies you are using to make all team members feel equally appreciated, facilitate collaboration between them, outreach to diverse speakers and act early on potentially discriminatory behaviors as soon as they emerge. Regarding best practices for hiring, please indicate the steps you take to mitigate bias during recruitment and candidate selection, including but not limited to writing inclusive position advertisements, advertising broadly to a diverse array of institutions, standardizing the interview process, using diverse selection committees, and using rubrics or other standardized measures for candidate evaluation and selection. Please specify your plans for how you will continue to foster and promote a diverse, inclusive, and equitable research environment in your own lab and the IRP community.