2015 AAAS Annual Meeting (12-16 February 2015)

February 12 - 16, 2015

Diversity in the Academic STEM Workforce: Understanding Career Experiences

Developing effective and robust information on the challenges faced by diverse populations in the advancement, retention, and excellence in science is of utmost importance to the ability to address diversity challenges in a meaningful way. Detailed information that addresses the nuances of career development experiences is critical in this dialogue. This panel addresses diversity issues via different lenses that draw from robust data sources regarding questions of diversity and career development in STEM. At the early career stage, how are career trajectories developed? How and why do doctoral students in STEM choose academic versus nonacademic positions? As careers progress, how do social processes in the lab and academic environment shape scientist’s views of their expertise? Given the challenges that women face in the scientific community, what can we learn about the new generation of scientists and their self-efficacy regarding their expertise? Finally, how do the resources that diverse populations develop to build career capacity vary across underrepresented groups? In particular, how does the intersection of gender and ethnic/racial underrepresentation demonstrate different network strategies and resources? This panel discusses these challenges, presenting detailed data and analysis that provide information on the challenges of building and supporting a diverse STEM workforce.