Why do we need to improve our equity, diversity, and inclusion in bioinformatics? What is our current status, and how will more equitable and diverse representation help us as a field?
The Mariana Trench remarkable geological features on Earth.pptx
Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Bioinformatics: Bad news and good news
1. Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in
Bioinformatics:
Bad news and good news
Madelaine Gogol
Programmer Analyst III
Computational Biology Core
Stowers Institute
Kansas City, Missouri
3. Overview
• Bad news: Harassment and Bias
• Good news: Diverse groups work better
• What can you do?
4. Sexual Harassment of Women: Climate, Culture, and Consequences in Academic S
58% of women have
experienced some form
#metooSTEM
The bad news: sexual harassment
is prevalent in academia
5. “John” is favored over “Jennifer” for Lab
Manager
Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students (Moss-Racusin et al, 2012)
John offered $30K
Jennifer offered $26K
6. Black applicants less likely to be
awarded NIH funding
After controlling for
- educational background
- country of origin
- training
- previous awards
- publication record
- employer characteristics
Black applicants remain 10 percentage points less likely than
whites to be awarded NIH research funding…
Ginther, et al, 2011: Race, Ethnicity, and NIH Research Awards
7. Milkman, et al, 2012
Professors more willing to meet with
prospective white male students
8. Outright harassment is happening, bias
exists, and nobody should have to put
up with that!
9. Now, for some good
news!
What do we stand to gain
if we improve?
11. Diverse Science collaborators write higher impact
papers
Freeman & Huang, 2015
•1.5 million scientific papers (1985-2008)
•Papers by ethnically (and geographically) diverse groups
• More citations
• Higher impact factors
12. Business performance is improved by
diversity
Deszo & Ross, 2012
Female representation = better financial returns
McKinsey, 2015
Racial and Ethnic diversity offered more improvements
than gender diversity…
13. Diverse groups are better at solving
murder mysteries
Phillips, Northcraft, and Neale, 2012
•~200 undergrad business students
• 3 person groups
•Murder mystery evidence packet
14. What do diverse groups do differently that
makes them more effective?
•Share more unique information
•criticality is better than consensus
15. What can you do about it?
https://implicit.harvard.edu/
Seek out speakers, employees, etc. who may be under-represented in
your group.
Call people out (and/or report) offensive statements or actions.
Join our task force and work for one of these things at a future ISMB:
- EDI training
- Data collection on demographics of attendees and speakers
- Childcare (or other family friendly policies)
- Affinity group networking events (e.g. Women, people of color, LGBT)
16. OBF Travel Fellowship
“Aimed at increasing diverse participation at events
promoting open source bioinformatics software development
and open science in the biological research community”
https://github.com/OBF/obf-docs/blob/master/Travel_fellowships.md
17. First annual was July 5th
#LGBTSTEMday, supported by ISCB
@PrideinSTEM
18. To sum up
• Bias and harassment exist
• Diverse groups work better
• Join us, we need your help!
#iscb_edi
Mandala R code from Antonio Sánchez Chinchón - https://fronkonstin.com/2018/03/11/mandalas-colored/
Notes de l'éditeur
This is second only to the military (69%).
Application with name “John” rated more competant, offered better salary (30K) than identical application with the name “Jennifer” (26K)
After controlling for the applicant’s educational background, country of origin, training, previous research awards, publication record, and employer characteristics, we find that black applicants remain 10 percentage points less likely than whites to be awarded NIH research funding.
over 6,500 professors at top U.S. universities drawn from 89 disciplines and 259 institutions.
Names of students were randomly assigned to signal gender and race (Caucasian, Black, Hispanic, Indian, Chinese)
In general, faculty were about 7-10% more likely to respond to a white male name (Brad Anderson, Steven Smith) than a woman or minority name.
These are things that can contribute to not only underemplyoment, but also people dropping out of science. We lose out on their talent, and they lose out on what can be an interesting and rewarding career.
Most of the effect was attributable to the fact that ethnically similar co-authors tend to have weaker publication records than co-authors who publish with scholars from other ethnicities, but some of the effect may reflect the way interactions of people with different perspectives produce ideas or better results.
15 years of data on upper management teams of 1500 S&P firms
They claim to get around this by comparing a firm to itself with and without women and claim to find a causal effect.
The mckinsey report found that the upper quartile of firms’ racial and ethnic diversity were 35% more likely to perform above the median in their industry.
randomly assigned to racially homogenous or diverse group (all male/all female)
Given both shared and unique clues
20 minutes to read and review evidence, take notes
Not allowed to keep case materials during group discussion
35 minutes to come to a decision
Homogenous groups tend to assume everyone has the same information
Developing a norm of criticality results in better outcomes than a norm of consensus. More information gets shared, more avenues get explored, and groups are more innovative in seeking solutions. This is what we need in science.
First, realize EVERYONE has implicit biases, even if they don’t want to. Including me! Take a test to prove it to yourself and tell your friends. Actively work to question your assumptions about people and keep your potential biases in mind when hiring, recruiting speakers, evaluating employees, or reviewing abstracts.
Of course, please call people out if you witness insensitive statements or actions, even if they are not directed at you. Report them if appropriate. At ISMB, you can report these to the ISCB staff, like Diane Kovats, executive director.
Lastly, we are just getting started. We would love to have a large group of people interested in making progress on these topics to help us plan some wonderful things for future ISMBs.
A few additional announcements - If you consider yourself the member of an under-represented community, consider applying for an OBF travel fellowship, which is specifically aimed to increase diverse participation at events promoting open source bioinformatics software development and open science.
The first annual LGBT Stem day was Thursday, July 5th. It was supported by ISCB, and here is a relevant twitter hashtag and handle if you would like more information.
To sum up – I showed that bias and harassment exist, and I described how diverse groups work better. We need your help, so please join us. Here is our hashtag.
I have some stickers to pass out. If you like, you can put these on your badge to indicate your interest in working towards Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. I designed these in R using code from Antonio Sanchez Chinchon.
