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A3D3 Equity & Career Committee

Javier Duarte, Mia Liu

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Equity & Career Committee

  • Coordinators: Javier Duarte and Mia Liu
  • Rotating members on a yearly basis (~3-5 additional): PIs and postdocs
    • If interested in volunteering, contact us!
  • Charge: coordinate/organize postbacc program (including reviewing applications), coordinate postdoc mentoring, review/revise code of conduct, conduct merit review of the Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion (EDI) for the institute
  • Communication: slack channel for discussion: #a3d3-equity-career (+ google group?)
  • Meetings as needed

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Post-bacc Program

  • Targeting URM: provide the experience, support and preparation for students who might not otherwise be prepared for or admitted to Ph.D. programs in physics, astronomy, biology, neuroscience, and computer science.
  • One-year appointments as employees at the collaborating institutions, participation in research and research supervision, professional development through career and graduate admissions guidance, and one-on-one mentoring.
  • Two post-bacc/year, each post-baccalaureate will be assigned a research supervisor and a separate mentor
  • Access to GRE preparation courses and writing seminars (Some held at UCSD -- could also find out if we can hire / buy such a course) + help with applying to grad schools

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Post-bacc Program

  • Timeline:
    • Ad out by end of 2021 (consider coinciding, but a little later than grad school deadlines)
    • Review applications in the spring 2022
    • Start date in the summer/fall 2022 (or earlier if possible, may make sense to sync with some local REU programs for the induction)
  • Distribution of post-bacc student researchers
    • If your institution is interested in receiving a post-bacc student, let us know ASAP
    • What about auditing courses for training/credit/certificate?
    • Ensure there are social/professional development events for students to connect
    • Employment at individual institutions (UW will pay subaward)
  • Other post-bacc programs for inspiration

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Recruitment

  • Once ad is ready, spam lists (NSBP, NSHP, Black in AI, Latinx in AI, SHPE, SACNAS, WiML, etc.)
    • Attend these conferences/workshops and talk to potential students
  • Selection committee & criteria, project matching, application material
  • Ensure balance across domains and participating institutes
  • Placement after the program + followup

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Reviewing applications

  • Holistic review, design a rubric, etc.
  • Example rubric following recommendations from C-CIDE (for grad school):

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Postdoc Mentoring

  • Each postdoc will be assigned a mentor at their local institute and a second, independent, mentor at another institute and domain
  • Entrance discussion with their two mentors to discuss their long- and short-term career goals, research opportunities
  • Annual review of the postdoc’s progress to review career plans and discuss academic and professional development; goals and the career path will be adjusted as a response to the postdoc’s goals.
  • Participation in FML meetings and convenership position within the FML organization; this is the main venue for regular communication.
  • Opportunity to serve on the equity and career committee
  • Yearly joint meetings of all postdocs within A3D3 with the Management. Meetings provide a venue for postdocs to raise professional concerns, provide feedback, and suggest structural changes that could enhance the research environment.
  • Seminar opportunities at many of the various partner organizations

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Code of conduct and Merit review

  • Example from IAIFI + form agreeing to it
  • Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct
  • UW Code of Conduct
  • One of our first duties is to distill this into our own code of conduct
  • Also, will establish procedures to perform EDI Merit Review