LIGO Lab Diversity Activities

1
LIGO Lab Diversity Activities

• Fred Raab
• LIGO Lab Diversity Officer
• Head, LIGO Hanford Observatory
• 18Nov08

2
Outline

• What we said (last year) we wanted to do
• What NSF decided we wanted to do
• What we did
• What we need to do

3
LIGO Diversity Committee
Shown to NSF Visiting Panel in 2007

• Members
• Fred Raab, Chair
• Cindy Akutagawa, LIGO Lab contact with Caltech
  HR, committee secretary and participant
• Warren Buck, Chancellor Emeritus, University of
  Washington, Bothell
• Corey Gray, operator, LIGO Hanford Observatory
• Nergis Mavalvala, Asst Prof., LIGO MIT
• Marisela Mendoza, Retention Specialist, Columbia
  Basin College, Pasco, WA
• Deborah Muhammed, Educator, LIGO Science
  Education Center
• Amber Stuver, Postdoctoral Scholar, LIGO
  Livingston Observatory
• Carol Wilkinson, AdLIGO Project Manager, LIGO
  Hanford Observ.
• Stan Whitcomb, LIGO Chief Scientist, LIGO Caltech

4
Diversity Committee Charge
Shown to NSF Visiting Panel in 2007
The committee will advise the Directorate about
actions that can be taken to move the Laboratory
forward towards our goal of providing
opportunities for underrepresented minorities and
women to join our staff and to thrive
professionally.

• Items of business
• efforts to increase diversity among applicants
  for future LIGO hires
• efforts to increase diversity in the
  undergraduate research applicant pool
• evaluation of potential barriers to a
  diversity-friendly environment within LIGO
• assessment strategies establishing a baseline
  and measuring progress

5
In Feb 2008, NSF requested that we also submit a
formal diversity plan

• LIGO Laboratory Diversity Plan (M080380) draft
  available to panel under review by Diversity
  Committee
• Plan emphasizes pro-activity
• LIGO Lab values diversity as essential to the
  creative process of science.
• Broad definition of inclusion awareness gender,
  ethnicity and race also disabilities and
  different sexual orientations, languages,
  academic training, economic classes, backgrounds,
  etc.
• All Lab members have a responsibility to
  encourage diversity accomplishments will be
  formally recognized on annual employee
  performance reviews.
• Diversity Officer will interface with Directorate
  and Diversity Committee to establish annual
  goals, report progress and adjust strategies if
  goals are not being met.

6
Lab Diversity Plan (contd)

• Progress will be compiled and tracked on Lab
  demographics, REU applicants and awardees,
  numbers of under-served and under-represented
  touched by education public outreach programs.
• Recrutiment measures emphasize advertising/exhibit
  ing to reach target audiences as well as
  networking with institutions and people with
  connections to targeted communities.
• Retention The Lab will actively seek the
  opinions of women and minority members on ways we
  can better foster success. (Egregious issues of
  discrimination or harassment will be dealt with
  through Caltech Ombuds Office and HR disciplinary
  paths.)
• Forging a more inclusive pipeline LIGO EPO
  efforts have hands-on access to large numbers of
  under-served and under-represented explicit
  focus on awareness of STEM careers and pathways.

7
Actions recommended by Diversity Committee

• Continue expansion of EPO programs to widen input
  pipeline for under-represented groups
• EPO should include a careers component (already
  present to some extent perhaps more explicit?)
• LIGO should be represented at job fairs attended
  heavily by under-represented groups
• LIGO should network with schools that have dense
  populations of under-represented groups
• LIGO should develop standard way to have job
  openings highly visible to under-represented
  groups

8
Progress since Sep 2007

• Diversity Officer and Diversity Committee in
  place, at work
• Draft of formal Lab Diversity Plan available to
  visiting panel and under review by Diversity
  Committee.
• Tracking system largely in place should be
  reporting by year end.
• Procedure for routine postings of job searches to
  strategic online sites begun in collaboration
  with HR.
• Annual exhibitions at annual meetings of
  NSBP/NSHP and SACNAS begun this year raised LIGO
  awareness through hundreds of personal contacts.
• Nergis Mavalvala represented LIGO in US
  Delegation at IUPAP Conference on Women in
  Physics
• Seminars at Caltech LHO by Vanessa Lauberg
  (promising African-American Astronomy Ph.D.
  candidate from U.Md., arranged by Stan Whitcomb)
• LIGO Management Workshop discussion of diversity

9
To do

• Finalize and implement Lab Diversity Plan
• Finalize tracking system and compile baseline
  numbers for 2007 and 2008.
• Initiate LIGO workplace examination
• In what ways is the LIGO Lab diversity friendly
  or unfriendly and how can we improve?
• Identify 2009 Goals (start with this slide!)
• Develop network contacts list
• Request leads from connected individuals
• Develop announcements of opportunities for
  interns, speakers, visitors
• Increase number of job fairs and programs
  targeting specific groups

10
Summary

• We have created a program over the last 15 months
• Will need expansion and tweaking based on
  assessments
• Like other challenges, we will make progress