2024 Postdoc Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Forum

You are invited to attend this year’s UW-Madison Postdoc Diversity & Inclusion Forum on Tuesday, April 25, 10:00am-1:30pm for advice on: 1) writing your diversity and inclusion statement and 2) creating an inclusive research group. Plus, lunch is provided! Full details below.

Schedule :

10:00 am Session 1: How to Write Effective Diversity & Inclusion Statements 

This interactive activity will be led by Jessica M. Maher, Ph.D., the Associate Director for the Delta Program in Research, Teaching, and Learning. Diversity and inclusion statements are an often-required component of academic faculty applications, but postdocs are often provided with little guidance on how to write such statements. The goal of this workshop is to provide concrete strategies for effectively communicating attendees’ commitment to practices that enhance diversity and inclusion in their research, teaching, and service. Participants will work individually and in groups to develop outlines and work on templates to generate new statements or improve existing drafts.

11:30 am Break for lunch 

12:00 pm Session 2: How to Create an Inclusive Research Environment 

A panel of experts from UW-Madison will share strategies for supporting an inclusive research environment. Discussion topics will include increasing accessibility within your research group, intentionally increasing collaborations with diverse faculty members/researchers, and creating a research group manual to promote inclusion. The panelists are:

• Kelvin Alfaro, Internal Consultant, Office of Strategic Consulting
• Markus Brauer, Professor, Psychology, and Executive Director, Institute for Diversity Science
• Christina Hull, Professor, Biomolecular Chemistry
• Laura Knoll, Professor, Medical Microbiology and Immunology, and Associate Dean for Basic Research Training, School of Medicine and Public Health
• Erika Marín-Spiotta, Professor, Geography, Co-Director of University of Wisconsin-Madison Inclusion in Science & Engineering Leadership Institute (WISELI)

Lunch is provided. Register here by Tuesday April 18. 

This event is organized by the UW-Madison Postdoctoral Association Diversity & Inclusion Committee.

Have you, or a postdoc you know, experienced a difficult situation in the workplace and you weren’t sure where to go for support?

The UW-Madison Postdoctoral Association is holding a panel discussion entitled “How to Navigate Workplace Adversity as a Postdoc” on Tuesday, April 26 from 12:00-1:30 PM. This event forms this year’s Postdoc Diversity & Inclusion Forum.

The goal of this event is to provide resources, information, and advice to postdocs regarding how to handle adversity in the workplace with an emphasis on the experiences of postdocs from diverse backgrounds. This event is sponsored by the campus Office of Postdoctoral Studies.

We encourage all postdocs to attend the event at the Genetics-Biotechnology Center Building Auditorium (425 Henry Mall, Room 1111). It will also be live-streamed. To join the event virtually, please register here with your UW email address. Registration is not required for in-person attendance.

The panel discussion will be structured by (1) reading pre-written, fictional scenarios and (2) response and discussion by panelists. Panelists will recognize the adversity faced by the postdoc(s) in the scenario, provide context from their office/unit, and highlight resources on campus.

The moderator will be the association’s Diversity & Inclusion Committee chair Dr. Ashley Ruba, and the panelists are:

Tricia Droes, Human Resources Manager, College of Engineering

Jane Dymond, Ombud, Ombuds Office

Travis Grimm, JD, Lead Civil Rights Investigator, Office of Compliance

James Keck, PhD, Associate Dean for Basic Research Training, School of Medicine and

Public Health

Ruben Mota, PhD, ADA Coordinator, Office of Compliance

This event is in response to our spring 2021 Postdoc Diversity & Inclusion Forum, which connected university leadership to the diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility challenges faced by UW-Madison’s postdocs.

If you have questions or comments, please contact association president Dr. James Romero-Masters (jcromero@wisc.edu). Additional information about the UW-Madison Postdoctoral Association and its Diversity & Inclusion Committee can be found on our website (uwpa.wisc.edu).

UW-Madison Postdoctoral Association Diversity & Inclusion Committee Members 

Ashley Ruba, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Psychology (chair)

Erin Cunningham, PhD, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Department of Geoscience

Jessica Kelliher, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Medical Microbiology & Immunology

Charlie Lenell, PhD, Postdoctoral Trainee, Department of Surgery

James Romero-Masters, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Oncology

Committee Advisor 

Imogen Hurley, PhD, Director, UW-Madison Office of Postdoctoral Studies

Postdocs at UW-Madison play a vital role in our University’s research enterprise. Yet, the concerns of postdocs are often overlooked. This is particularly true for postdocs belonging to underrepresented groups, including individuals who are BIPOC, women, LGBTQ+, and/or individuals with disabilities.

To address this matter, the UW-Madison Postdoctoral Association held a Postdoc Diversity & Inclusion Forum on Friday, April 30 from 2:30-4:00 PM. This unique virtual event aimed to highlight diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) issues and challenges faced by UW-Madison’s postdocs from underrepresented groups. We brought together university leadership, subject matter experts, postdocs, and other campus members to listen to and engage with the experiences of postdocs.

We invited all campus members to attend the Postdoc D&I Forum. There was limited opportunity for questions from the audience at the end of the event.

To read about the outcomes of this event, please see our Forum booklet.

The UW-Madison Postdoctoral Association has surveyed postdocs and solicited stories and ideas from postdocs for the Postdoc D&I Forum that intersect with DEIJ issues at UW-Madison and its surrounding community. Submitted narratives highlighted a variety of issues. Drawing on common themes from these narratives, we discussed issues and solutions from the following categories:

1. Mentor-mentee power dynamics

2. Benefits for postdocs

3. Culture of community at UW-Madison and the city of Madison

4. D&I training

The Postdoc D&I Forum was structured by (1) reading select narratives and proposed solutions and (2) response by panelists, who have been tasked with recognizing the issues brought forth from the postdoc community, providing feedback from the University’s perspective on our proposed solutions, and integrating the issues highlighted into their work. Our panelists were

• William Barker, Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Programs, CALS

• Cheryl Gittens, Interim Vice Deputy Chancellor for Diversity and Inclusion, Division of Diversity, Equity and Educational Achievement

• James Keck, Associate Dean for Basic Research Training, SMPH

• Gloria Marí-Beffa, Interim Associate Dean for Research, L&S

• Oliver Schmitz, Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Affairs, College of Engineering

• Amy Wendt, Associate Vice Chancellor for Research in the Physical Sciences, OVCRGE

The event was moderated by Jennifer Sheridan, Interim Associate Dean for Inclusion, Equity, and Diversity in the College of Engineering.

If you have questions or comments, please contact the UW-Madison Postdoctoral Association (uwpa@postdoc.wisc.edu).

Sincerely,

UW-Madison Postdoctoral Association Diversity & Inclusion Forum Committee Members

Brian Butterworth, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Research Associate, Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences

Anahid Ebrahimi, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Research Associate, Mechanical Engineering (co-chair)

Dave Hyman, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Research Associate, SSEC/CIMSS

Jessica Kelliher, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology

Charlie Lenell, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Trainee, Department of Surgery

James Romero-Masters, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Oncology (co-chair)

Committee Advisor

Imogen Hurley, Ph.D., Director, UW-Madison Office of Postdoctoral Studies

Building on the Diversity and Inclusion Survey we conducted in summer 2020, the UW-Madison Postdoctoral Association Diversity and Inclusion Committee is planning a unique virtual event aimed at highlighting diversity, equity, inclusion and justice (DEIJ) issues and challenges faced by UW-Madison’s postdocs from underrepresented groups. This event will bring together university leadership, subject matter experts, postdocs, and other stakeholders to engage with and listen to the experiences of postdocs from underrepresented groups, including policy recommendations across the many scales of the university hierarchy. We hope you will share your stories with us! 

A principal goal of this event is to center the lived experiences of UW-Madison’s postdocs from underrepresented groups in the necessary discussions of racism, sexism, ableism, and other forms of discrimination operating within the university. Our hope is that this event will build common cause between postdocs and university leaders and will enable direct discussions of these issues and policy recommendations through a mixture of storytelling and discussion.  

The event will consist of two parts:

1. A listening session wherein postdocs’ experiences and policy recommendations will be shared through storytelling.
2. A discussion with university leadership, subject matter experts, postdocs, and other stakeholders to discuss the narratives shared at the event and how the university plans to respond to these issues.

To ensure that the listening event is a safe space to share these potentially sensitive topics, narratives will be read during the event by committee members.

In addition to the event, we will compile the stories we receive into an anonymized document which will be available on our website. Our hope is that this document will serve as a powerful and motivating resource going forward for informing university leadership, departments, research group heads, and others toward making UW-Madison more welcoming, supporting, and equitable for postdocs from all underrepresented groups. 

For the listening event, the committee is soliciting stories from postdocs which intersect with DEIJ issues at UW-Madison and its surrounding community. 

This solicitation is intended to elicit narratives from three broad categories:

1. Personal narratives, experiences, or perspectives on these issues and their relationship to individual postdoc trajectories through the university
2. Firsthand accounts of successful DEIJ initiatives within labs, departments, or the university community more broadly  
3. Recommendations for changes to policy or procedures impacting the DEIJ landscape at any scale within the university. 

Please use our survey to record your stories and recommendations. Further details are provided within the survey.

Thank you for your time and help,

Committee Members

Brian Butterworth, PhD, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences

Anahid Ebrahimi, PhD, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Mechanical Engineering

Imogen Hurley, PhD, Director, UW-Madison Office of Postdoctoral Studies

Dave Hyman, PhD, Postdoctoral Research Associate, SSEC/CIMSS

Jessica Kelliher, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology

Charlie Lenell, PhD, Postdoctoral Trainee, Department of Surgery

James Romero-Masters, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Oncology