Teaching, Outreach and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI)
I am the chair of the physics and astronomy department DEI committee.
Until summer 2020, these were two separate committees that I chaired (one in the Physics division (since 2017) and one in the Astronomy division (since 2016)). Our goal is to raise awareness for inclusion and diversity in our department, and we strive to diversify our student, postdoc, and faculty population. We hold regular meetings and sponsored workshops and other activities.
For example, we had workshops on implicit bias, impostor syndrome, coping with stress and anxiety in grad school, growth and fixed mindsets, mentoring workshop, etc. The committee also sponsors workshops for equity and inclusions in admissions and hiring; for example, we invited (Fall 2019) Sherard Robbins from Visceral Change (see photo), who gave a talk about diversifying our admission and hiring practices and met with the different committees.
We also sponsored a university-wide event, inviting Prof. Mahzarin Banaji, (Harvard) to talk about implicit bias (see photo). Mahzarin is known for her work on implicit bias, and she is the co-founder of Project Implicit (if you are reading these lines and think that you don't have any biases, I highly recond o take a test or two in Project Implicit).
In the summer of 2020 we sponsred and organized, for the UCLA physical science division, the screening of the movie Picture a Scientist (which addresses challenges that women in sciences face) and the town hall about it.
Notably we have implemented a new UCLA graduate Physics Bridge-program in collaboration with the American Physics Society (APS).
I am also a member of the UCLA Physical Sciences Diversity Committee (since 2016), and a mentor in the Cal-Bridge program (since 2015)
In 2019 I had the honor to be the recipient of the UCLA Career Commitment to Diversity DEI Award.
Interview on Chopping BLOCK by Visceral Change