Greetings from the University of Illinois Champaign Urbana, where I am attending a National Science Foundation funded workshop “Transdisciplinary Research on Incivility in STEM Contexts.” This workshop calls together researchers to address various issues that collectively create challenging work environments for diverse populations in STEM fields (disrespect, microaggression, ostracization, intimidation, rudeness, abuse, victimization, gaslighting, exclusion from social networks, etc.). Directly acknowledging these patterns also addresses the fact that the “STEM pipeline for increasing diversity” is a pipe where women, POC, LGBTQIA, and other diverse people exit that pipeline all the time as a result of these incivilities and implicit biases tolerated in STEM departments and Higher Ed in general.

I’ve been a member of the Association for Women in Science since 1994, and have been working for my academic career to mentor and advocate for equity, inclusion, and diversity in environmental sciences and natural resource management.