NAASC Awardees for ICAR 2022-Belfast

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1. NAASC have had diversifying awards for the annual Arabidopsis conference (ICAR) in place since 2004, and have been thinking about this and planning around DEI, particularly with respect to race and ethnicity, career stage, and gender.
2. We have made progress over the years, particularly with our Inclusivity Scholars Program (ISP, formerly Under-Represented Minority program). The valuable input we’ve received from ISP awardees via annual surveys has pushed us to evolve the program, such as ~2010 when we started focusing on developing cohorts to extend beyond simply “access” to ICARs. Based on feedback in 2015 we began coordinating cohort travel when the ICAR is held outside the US to ensure that awardees arrive with a community to participate with in conference activities. We’ve also added informal mentoring with ISP awardees and NAASC members, as well as other prominent scientists, and develop an ISP-specific program at each ICAR with more activities at NAASC-led ICARs.
3. When we organized ICAR 2020/2021 we initiated a number of new ideas focused on DEI. If you are interested to learn of our recent DEI efforts, please click this link for a pdf  summary NAASCSummaryNewICAR2021Approaches.
4. We still have much work to do to promote and enable a just and equitable plant science community. NAASC is committed to promoting a global plant sciences community that reflects the true diversity of all its members. We constantly seek to learn and improve in service to our community. We invite your input and suggestions to help us learn and grow. You can contact us at [email protected]

The North American Arabidopsis Steering Committee (NAASC) invited applications from US plant scientists across 3 categories to participate in the International Conference on Arabidopsis Research (ICAR) taking place June 20-24 in Belfast, Ireland.

We are happy to announce the selected awardees and we congratulate each scientist for their positive contributions to plant biology!

Category 1: IN-PERSON* Early Career Researcher (ECR) partial participation awards to US plant biologists that are students, postdocs in postdoc title, or pre-tenure junior faculty (and that are NOT a member of the groups under-represented in US science listed in 2)

    • Gozde Demirer UC Davis Postdoc
    • Stephen Deslauriers University of Minnesota, Morris Junior Faculty (pre-tenure)
    • Mona Gouran UC DAVIS PhD/Doctoral Student
    • Grace Johnston Colorado State University Master’s Student
    • Eun-Deok Kim University of Texas at Austin Postdoc
    • Gabrielle Rupp University of Missouri-Columbia PhD/Doctoral Student
    • Martha Schwall Louisiana State University PhD/Doctoral Student
    • Mingli Xu University of South Carolina Junior Faculty (pre-tenure)
    • Eric Yang University of Washington PhD/Doctoral Student

Category 2: IN-PERSON* Inclusivity Scholars Program (ISP) full funding awards to US plant biologists that are Native/African/Latinx American of Central/South American descent only; OR plant biology faculty at HBCU, 1890, Black-serving institution in the US and that mentor, teach, support members of under-represented groups. We will award up to 10 full funding awards to include: coordinated registration, economy and travel, following NSF rules. Full details will be sent to selected awardees who will join the NAASC ISP Cohort for coordinated activities and travel. The vast majority of ISP participation costs will be paid up-front by NAASC. The ISP cohort will be led /joined by these cohort leaders: Dr. Cris Argueso, Dr. Terri Long, Dr. Siobhan Brady, and Dr. Joanna Friesner

    • David Bullock North Carolina State University PhD/Doctoral Student
    • Norma Castro Guerrero University of Missouri Postdoc
    • Efren Gonzalez Carnegie Institution for Science PhD/Doctoral Student
    • Michael Guzman UC Riverside PhD/Doctoral Student
    • Carlos Juarez Colorado State University PhD/Doctoral Student
    • Stefanie King Washington University in St. Louis PhD/Doctoral Student
    • Imani Madison North Carolina State University PhD/Doctoral Student
    • Thelma Madzima University of Washington Bothell Faculty
    • Marcel Malena New York University PhD/Doctoral Student
    • Edith Pierre-Jerome Duke University Postdoc
    • Carin Ragland Stanford University PhD/Doctoral Student

Category 3: VIRTUAL/ONLINE Participation Awards (VOPA) covering virtual registration fee  for US plant biologists that qualify in either/both of categories 1 or 2, and/or have financial need, and wish to participate virtually.

    • Ling Li Mississippi State University
    • Pablo Jenik Franklin & Marshall College

*IN-PERSON awardees that switch to virtual attendance will have a maximum award amount equal to the cost of online registration. Category 1 & 2, in-person awardees, must inform NAASC of any switch to virtual attendance by Monday 23 May, 2022, ~ 1 month prior to ICAR start, or full award is forfeit.

Community support are provided  by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. Award #1518280. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.