[bioundgrd] Hello from the Biology DEI Council undergraduate reps!

[Joshua Stone]

From: Shannon Y Weng <sweng at mit.edu>
Cc: Lilly K Edwards <lillyk at mit.edu>

Hi fellow Course 7’s!

Happy new year and hope you all are having a great start to IAP! We’re Shannon and Lilly, undergrad reps on the biology department’s new DEI Council. A bit about us: I (Shannon) am a junior in course 5-7 originally from Princeton, New Jersey. I previously was a UROP at the Amon lab in the Koch Institute, and I’m involved in Next Sing, DT, ADT, and Medlinks. Some of my other hobbies include reading, writing, and cooking (pls send me recipe recommendations!). Lilly is a sophomore in course 6-7 from Kansas City, Missouri. She is a member of the varsity volleyball team, does research in CSAIL, is an exec member of MIT SHINE for Girls, and is part of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority. She loves to buy plants, though she’s not great at keeping them alive :(

For those who haven’t seen the email from Alan Grossman or the latest BioMatters issue, the Bio DEI Council is comprised of faculty, staff (including Josh who’s sending this email!), postdocs, grad students, and undergrads (us!) in the biology department. The council was just formed last month, so we’re still in the initial stages of planning what we want to do. You can learn more about the council here<https://biology.mit.edu/about/diversity/dei-committee/>.

As we start thinking about ways to improve DEI in biology at the undergraduate level, we’d love to get input from you guys! It would mean so much to us if you could fill out this quick form<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScFTGRylv3jWAehzikkz6QJOpelfJKIwN5y9MXzCyifFs-yyA/viewform?usp=sf_link> to tell us what changes you’d like to see or to schedule a 1-1 meeting with us. Just to let you know, the next DEI council meeting will be on 1/20/21<x-apple-data-detectors://0>, so if you fill out the form (or contact us) before then, we can potentially bring up your ideas at the meeting.

We’re so excited and honored to be representing the undergraduate community on the DEI council, and we hope to make some real improvements to the Course 7 undergraduate experience. Of course, please don’t hesitate to email either of us at any time if you have questions/suggestions for the DEI council :)


Best,
Shannon & Lilly
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