Advocacy

I am passionate about many things and improving my community is a huge driver. I am interested in mental health, equity, diversity, inclusion, justice, and education accessibility.

Women in Data Science Hawaii Conference 2022

The WiDS 2022 Hawai‘i event is an independent event that is organized by University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and Chaminade University to coincide with the annual WiDS Worldwide conference organized by Stanford University. All genders are invited to attend WiDS regional events which feature outstanding women doing outstanding work.

The WiDS 2022 Hawai‘i event is free and open to anyone interested in data science. With an online format this year, we hope to have attendees from throughout Hawai‘i and the Pacific. Students of all ages (from high school to graduate school) will find topics of interest, as will those who have already launched their data science careers.

Picture a Scientist Panel Seminar

UH’s Department of Earth Science and Hawai’i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP) joined together to watch the Picture a Scientist documentary film and hold a conversation about sexual harassment. You too can watch the film on PBS. Dr. Jenny Engels of Oregon Sea Grat Consortium facilitated a discussion with our panelists, Dr. Sonia Rowley of Earth Science, Dr. Patty Fryer of HIGP, and Dr. Rob Wright of HIGP. This seminar was highly attended, highly personal, and highly impactful for our department culture.

Creating a Standing Faculty JEDI Committee to Count toward Tenure Service

A group of faculty and students at the University of Hawai'i’s Earth Science Department and HIGP have been informally meeting to discuss how we can create a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive academic environment. We believe that these efforts should be recognized as service to the university and these values should be put at the forefront of our department. Having an official committee helps with recruitment (a growing population is passionate about DEI) and retention (we can help evaluate and improve representation and inclusion). This group has already derived many initiatives and efforts, like URGE, all-gender restrooms, and JEDI-centric seminars.

URGE - Unlearning Racism in Geoscience

URGE's primary objectives are to (1) deepen the community’s knowledge of the effects of racism on the participation and retention of Black, Brown, and Indigenous people in Geoscience, (2) draw on existing literature, expert opinions, and personal experiences to develop anti-racist policies and strategies, and (3) share, discuss, and modify anti-racist policies and strategies within a dynamic community network and on a national stage. 

Faculty and students from the University of Hawai'i’s Earth Science Department and HIGP meet on a biweekly basis to discuss journal articles, institution policies, and actionable tasks to fight racism in our academic environment. I recently led a session about hiring and admissions.

All-Gender Restrooms

Faculty and students from the University of Hawai'i’s Earth Science Department and HIGP led an initiative to renovate bathrooms in our POST (Pacific Ocean Science and Technology) building to accommodate all gender-identifying persons.

We took a survey of people who work and visit the POST building, specifically on floors 5 - 8. Based on the survey responses, a large majority (86%) of the community supports the creation of at least one all-gender restroom in the POST building, and nearly as many (78%) support the creation of two all-gender restrooms. The majority (53%) of the community respondents support the creation of an all-gender restroom on EACH of floors 5-8 of POST. Some community members responded that they expected all-gender restrooms to contribute to safety or privacy violations. This fear is not supported by the available data. A recent peer-reviewed research study indicated that there were no statistically significant differences in safety or privacy violations in public restrooms when comparing locations in Massachusetts with Gender Identity Nondiscrimination Laws in Public Accommodations (GINLPA) and states without GINLPA (Hasenbush et al., 2018). In general, the study found that reports of privacy or safety violations in public restrooms are extremely rare. In contrast, transgender and gender non-conforming people have been found to report serious safety and health-related concerns due to lack of access to inclusive restrooms, such as verbal harassment, physical attacks, and health complications to avoid restrooms (James et al., 2016). The evidence is that inclusive restrooms will not increase the prevalence of safety or privacy violations in general, but in fact, they may reduce unsafe situations for transgender or gender non-conforming people.

Hasenbush, A., Flores, A.R. & Herman, J.L. (2018). Gender Identity Nondiscrimination Laws in Public Accommodations: a Review of Evidence Regarding Safety and Privacy in Public Restrooms, Locker Rooms, and Changing Rooms. Sexuality Research and Social Policy, 1-14.

James, S.E., Herman, J.L., Rankin, S., Keisling, M., Mottet, L. & Anafi, M.  (2016). The Report of the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey. Washington, DC. National Center for Transgender Equality.

We publically announced the survey results, held a forum, and we are now negotiating with facilities managers on how to implement these renovations.

Strike4BlackLives Discussion

On June 10th, various institutions participated in a strike to support the Black Lives Matter movement. Encouraged by AAAS with original ShutDownStem website here, UH Manoa encouraged participation and I led a discussion with my co-workers. I’ve attached my discussion guide and our collective solutions. The discussion guide is linked here. Quick excerpt from the discussion guide":

Why we should care:

• A multitude of studies show how groups of diverse individuals with differing viewpoints outperform homogenous groups to find solutions that are more innovative, creative, and responsive to complex problems, and promote higher-order thinking amongst the group (Antonio et al, 2004; Page, 2007; Sommers, 2007)

• Universal human rights: people are being killed by our police. No one should feel afraid of the justice system that should protect them. “The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Monday wrote an open letter to the U.N. Human Rights Council calling for an emergency session of the global body and an investigation into police violence and repression of protests in the U.S.”

• We have loved ones who are affected

Ladies’ Tea Time

To better foster a sense of community for the ladies of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, I started an informal weekly ladies’ tea time in 2018. Since then, tea time has been financially backed and adopted by SiGMA, the graduate student organization for the Cornell Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering department.

Graduate and Professional Mental Health Advisory Council

“The Graduate and Professional Student Mental Health Advisory Council is responsible for providing feedback and making recommendations on mental health initiatives focused on graduate and professional students to the leadership of the Graduate School, Professional Schools, and Cornell Health. … The Advisory Council is specifically interested in reviewing environmental, cultural, and systemic structures, practices, and policies that impact the mental health and well-being of community members.  This is accomplished in two ways; 1) Cornell Health initiatives will be brought to this group for discussion and review, and 2) Group members will share and discuss ideas that have the potential to impact the graduate and professional community. This Council will serve as a continuous focus group to identify needs, develop strategies, and evaluate efforts to support graduate and professional student mental health and well-being.  Noteworthy is that the Council prioritizes evidence-based strategies to inform action steps.” Refer to full mental health framework here.

Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon Celebrates Women in STEM

“ In a bid to raise the profile of women in STEM, members of the Cornell and Ithaca community participated over the weekend in the Women in the Sciences’ Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon — an annual event where volunteers gather to create or expand upon entries in the online encyclopedia…

‘There’s a faculty member here that I absolutely adore and has accomplished a lot, and I’m trying to make a Wikipedia page for her,’ Zhu told The Sun. Zhu said that addressing the disparity between male and female Wikipedia entries is an important step in making STEM fields more accessible to women. ‘We’re very sensitive to information ingestion and not having these women represented in the way that we digest information skews our perspective into thinking that only men can be scientists or engineers,’ she said. ‘It’s hard to find a role model’.”

For the full article, refer here.