Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
The current lack of diversity in Earth science highlights the need for meaningful change.
With the goal of training geoscientists of diverse backgrounds and encouraging their retention, I have taken an active role in making each of my departments more inclusive.
At Princeton
I served on the Leadership Committee of Princeton Women in Geosciences (PWiGS), a departmental support network and mentorship program for graduate, postdoctoral, and faculty women in the department. We facilitated dinner discussions with visiting seminar speakers and professional development workshops open to all early career researchers in the department. I was also a liaison to the departmental Diversity Committee, advocating to improve the graduate experience by proposing concrete solutions to issues surrounding recruitment, advising, gender, and discrimination. After my thesis defense, I assisted in drafting Princeton GEO’s Fieldwork Code of Conduct. I was awarded the inaugural Geosciences Service and Outreach Award for Graduate Students for these efforts.
“Jenn is an exceptional mentor for women in our department. As a student leader in Princeton Women in GeoSciences (PWiGS), dedicated to improving the experience of female scientists in the Geosciences Department, and spearheading Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) conversations with faculty and fellow graduate students, Jenn has enabled programming and the creation of new policies to better support all members of our Department. Jenn blends excellence in research with compassion, kindness and support for those around her—broader impacts that are critical for the scientific enterprise to diversify and improve. Jenn has been exceptionally generous with her time, insight and compassion. Jenn has a deep commitment to improving the scientific community. Her input and her insights were instrumental in making these conversations productive, and they began a culture of soliciting student input on issues of diversity, inclusivity, representation and equity. This award is but a small way of recognizing the work, the courage, and the care that she has dedicated towards helping our Department, and the broader scientific community, better ourselves.”
— Geosciences Service and Outreach Award Citation
At Yale
In my first month at Yale, I was chosen by the chair to be one of the postdoctoral representatives to the Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences’ Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Anti-Racism (IDEA) Committee. In fall 2020, I began IDEA Reading Group, in order to educate ourselves and discuss equity issues facing our department, the field of Earth science, and our local New Haven community. In spring 2021, our reading group became an URGE pod, and I served as the pod leader working closely with teams of pod members to draft 8 deliverables for our department. These included a summary of how to report discrimination at Yale and links to demographic data, now published to our department website, and a field work code of conduct modeled on the Princeton GEO code, which is now being used on all EPS field trips and field work. I now lead IDEA subcommittees on field work inclusivity and a new Womxn in Earth & Planetary Sciences at Yale (WEPSY) organization (modeled on PWiGS), a key aspect of the Broader Impacts of my NSF fellowship. WEPSY hosts monthly social events or group mentoring meetings as well as an annual Women in EPS Day research symposium. I was awarded Yale’s inaugural EPS-IDEA Prize for my “outstanding and sustained contributions to our mission.”
Right: Yale Women in EPS Day 2022 organizers: Kels Jenkins, me, Alexie Millikin