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Rosanna K. Olsen, Ph.D.�Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest�University of Toronto

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Building Diversity

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Introduction

My lab studies the cognitive neuroscience of memory and aging

I have served on the OHBM Diversity and Inclusivity committee for six years

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Baycrest is fully affiliated with �the University of Toronto

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OHBM committee

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Our Interactions

OHBM Council

Diversity & Inclusivity Committee

Nominating Committee

Program Committee

Awards Committee

Communications Committee

Open Science SIG

Student Postdoc SIG

BrainArt

SIG

Before I get to that, I will just provide a picture of how our committee interacts with the various other groups within OHBM. The council originally voted to form or committee, the review our budget requests and provide monetary support for our initiatives. The program committee is the group of people who decide the oral content like keynote lectures, symposia, oral talks, round tables, and educational courses, at the meeting. The current chair of our committee sits on the program committee and provides input on the content. We also interact with the Nominating committee, the awards committee, and the communications committee through our various liaison positions. Finally, we also work on initiatives with the special interest groups, or SIGs. This includes the Open Science SIG, the Student Post-doc SIG, and the BrainArt SIG.

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Improving Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at OHBM

“Gender & Diversity Task Force”

Code of Conduct

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

NeuroImage Manuscript

Conducted member inclusivity survey

Established Diversity Champion award

“Diversity & Inclusivity Committee” (DIC)

2022

2023

Our committee was formed in 2017 and it was originally called the “Gender and Diversity Task Force”. In the beginning, our first mandate was the address the imbalance in gender representation within the organization, both within the committees and the speakers who were selected to present at the annual meeting. Our group was quick to conclude that there were other facets of diversity that were also not well balanced at our organization, and we proposed that the task force be changed to a standing committee. The OHBM leadership agreed and also asked our group to develop a Code of Conduct for the organization. The Code of Conduct was drafted in 2018 and was put in place at the 2019 annual meeting in Rome. In 2020, we worked with the awards committee to establish a “Diversity Champion” award. This award was created to honor and recognize individuals within the OHBM community who have worked hard to promote diversity and inclusivity either within their own institution, or in another academic organization. In 2021, our group published our first manuscript, and I will be discussing some of the content of this manuscript in the following slides. We also designed and collected a member inclusivity survey in 2021, which I will also describe here.

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Improving Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at OHBM

Code of Conduct

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

Diversity Symposium

NeuroImage Manuscript

Conducted member inclusivity survey

Established Diversity Champion award

Annual activities:

“Diversity & Inclusivity Committee” (DIC)

Science outreach to kids

Diversity Round Table

2022

2023

1^st Bilingual�Frontiers for Young Minds

Live Review

Expanded�“Multilingual Kids Live Review”

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Breakdown of OHBM leadership by gender

Historical underrepresentation of women in Council

Action taken starting 2016:

Affirmative attention & “balanced ballot” strategy taken

Self-nominations allowed

DIC Chair has a vote on Nominating Committee since 2019

“Embracing diversity and inclusivity in an academic setting: Insights from the Organization for Human Brain Mapping” Tzovara et al., NeuroImage, 2021

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Breakdown of OHBM presenters by gender

Historical underrepresentation of women in keynote lectures and symposia.

Action taken staring 2016:

Diversity of presenters is a main selection criteria - diversity in topics, gender & nationalities.

DIC Chair has a say on the Program Committee since 2020

“Embracing diversity and inclusivity in an academic setting: Insights from the Organization for Human Brain Mapping” Tzovara et al., NeuroImage, 2021

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Geographic breakdown of OHBM members

# of speakers as a proportion of OHBM members

Complex picture: Asian countries are underrepresented. Researchers from central European countries, including non-native English speakers, are well represented.

Influencing factors: Languages sharing typology with English | historic ties to OHBM from individual labs | economic, local & macro-cultural factors.

“Embracing diversity and inclusivity in an academic setting: Insights from the Organization for Human Brain Mapping” Tzovara et al., NeuroImage, 2021

Speaking of geographic diversity, this was another facet of diversity that was addressed by our committee and reported in the 2021 manuscript. As you can see, this is a very international society and over 50 countries are represented in the OHBM membership. However, when we investigated the geographic distribution of the OHBM speakers, a very different picture emerges. One of our Japanese colleagues, Hiromasa Takemura, spearheaded this analysis, and he pointed out that speakers from Asian countries, despite making up a large percentage of OHBM membership, were few and far between. He argued that there are likely multiple factors at play and these include historical ties of OHBM leadership, as well as economic as well as local and macro-cultural factors. This is certainly an area that we hope we can focus on and make changes for the better in future meetings.

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Survey of Member Views on Inclusivity (2021)

Emailed to OHBM membership in January 2021
171 respondents from 25 unique countries

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Survey of Member Views on Inclusivity (2021)

Turning to the ethnic/racial composition of our survey respondents: the majority of our respondents did not identify as an ethnic/racial minority and by in large, we received the largest number of responses from those who identified as White/European. When we asked participants to rate if they felt a “sense of belonging” at OHBM, we observe a range of responses, but they skewed positive. While this is a good start, our committee felt like we were missing engagement from such a large portion of our membership, it is difficult to know where we fall more broadly beyond this sample. In the Q&A period, I would love to hear if folks have suggestions about how to engage more of or OHBM membership so that we can develop a more fulsome picture of the sense of belonging in this large, international organization.

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Diversity Symposium - an annual event

Goal: Raise awareness about bias & discrimination and propose solutions

2019: Gender Imbalances in Neuroscience

2020: LGBTQ+ Issues in Neuroscience

2021: Racial Bias in Neuroscience

2022: Asian Perspectives on Cultural and Linguistic Barriers at OHBM

2023: Using Technology to Enhance Diversity and Inclusivity in Neuroscience and Neuroimaging

Mobile MRI technology for imaging of rural and remote populations

2023 Lineup

Racially and phenotypically inclusive EEG and fNIRS

Mind that patient, trainee or staff - if he/she cannot hear or speak: Pro-active solutions in clinics, labs and classrooms via auto-captions

It’s not what we see, it’s who we see: The power of inclusive technologies and digital practices to elevate equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility for blind and low vision leaders in science

As I mentioned earlier, starting in 2019, or committee began to organize a yearly Diversity Symposium at our annual meeting. These symposia were selected to address imbalances on a variety of dimensions, racial bias, and other barriers to participation. Each symposia has featured a set of experts on the topic, who have discussed their lived experience as well as proposed solutions to ameliorating issues faced at OHBM. You can see that each year an important and topical issue was discussed. I wanted to highlight the excellent lineup we had in 2023. Parisa Zakavi presented on the use of Mobile MRI technology for imaging of rural and remote populations. Jasmine Kwasa presented on the topic of Racially and phenotypically inclusive EEG and fNIRS. Tilak Ratnanather presented “Mind that patient, trainee or staff - if he/she cannot hear or speak: Pro-active solutions in clinics, labs and classrooms via auto-captions and Natalina Martiniello presented “It’s not what we see, it’s who we see: The power of inclusive technologies and digital practices to elevate equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility for blind and low vision leaders in science.”

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Kids Live Review:�Brain Mappers of today meet with the Brain Mappers of tomorrow!

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Kids Live Review:�Brain Mappers of today meet with the Brain Mappers of tomorrow!

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Presentations in Toronto and livestreamed in Ghana!

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Challenges faced by Diversity and Inclusivity Committee

Engaging leadership at OHBM can still be improved
DEI (EDI) work is often invisible and underappreciated
DEI (EDI) may have different nuanced meanings for different individuals. Considering them all, in a community as large and international as OHBM, is a demanding task.
Lack of DEI is a multi-faceted problem that manifest in complex ways at a societal level. Additional voices from OHBM, as well as inter-organizational efforts are needed to reinforce/extend DIC's efforts.

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Future directions

Outreach

Manuscript about the “Multilingual Live Review” initiative
Expansion of ”Brain Mappers of the Future” program at the annual meeting

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Engagement

Participation in the 2021 Inclusivity survey dominated by North Americans.
Greater engagement with groups in Europe, Central/South America, Africa, and Asia is needed

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Thank you!

Presented by:�Rosanna Olsen

3560 Bathurst Street�Toronto, Ontario M6A 2E1�Canada�

Email: rolsen@research.baycrest.org

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Learn more about the Diversity and Inclusivity committee at OHBM on our website:

https://ohbm-dic.github.io/

Baycrest is fully affiliated with �the University of Toronto