Commendations
Alongside the awards, we want to also recognise and commend the following teams and individuals for their ongoing contributions to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.
Best Initiative
EquiStats, in the Department of Statistics, was set up earlier this year by graduate students to start a conversation on matters of diversity and inclusion and how they impact staff and graduate students within the Department. The initial aims of this initiative are:
(1) connecting and supporting underrepresented and minority groups and allies in the department, and
(2) raising awareness on relevant issues and discussing them in a welcoming environment.
Since their setup they have created virtual discussion boards, had talks on race, hiring processes, mental health, and LGBTQI+ rights around the world, and arranged upcoming events for bias in machine learning or making the internet a fairer place for everyone.
Best Initiative
Challenges & Changes, an initiative set up by Dr Alexandra Ramadan and Dr Kathryn Boast in the Department of Physics, is a series of talks about social issues that affect the careers of researchers, which provide a place to discuss actions to take as a community to create a supportive, diverse and inclusive environment. The ethos of the series is that by having an equitable, diverse and inclusive physics community we can ensure the research we are doing includes and benefits all. Speakers were selected on the basis that they had worked to improve diversity in physics. Seminars were open to the public and were very well attended.
Best Team Effort
LGBTQ+STEMinar 2021 Conference Organising Committee, which includes: Clara Barker, Izzi Mear, Kathryn Boast, Robin De Meyere, Marianne Aspbury, Alexandra Ramadan, Andrew Segerdahl. The LGBTQ+STEMinar is a conference for anyone under the STEM and LGBTQ+ umbrellas giving LGBT researchers of all career stages a chance to present their work to a multi-disciplinary audience where they know they will be accepted for who they are, and celebrated for their science. In January 2021, Oxford hosted the event with over 500 people registered and 110 unique attendees over the day.
Best Team Effort
We would also like to celebrate Libby McGowan, Josie Peters and Julie Meikle in the Department of Engineering Science for their work on developing and organising the Ambassador programme. The recruited Ambassadors are being used in a variety of ways to demonstrate diversity within the undergraduate population in Engineering and to encourage applications from a more diverse student body.