Dr. Lydia Villa-Komaroff (pg GSBS Scientific Communication Course

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

AMolecularBiologist' sViewonImplicitBias

by Angelica Rocha, Ph.D. DEI Council Lead; Assistant Director, Institutional Research & Academic Planning

An important question in higher education is why we have not made more progress in the representation of people from historically marginalized groups. This is in spite of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) efforts being a priority at our organizations and pressure from the National Institutes of Health, and other funding sources, to make these efforts a priority. On February 7th, 2022, over 70 people from Sanford Burnham Prebys, and our close networks, attended Dr. Lydia Villa-Komaroff’s virtual seminar “A Molecular Biologist’s View of Implicit Bias. ” Dr. Villa-Komaroff pointed to universally-held implicit biases as one reason for disparities in representation and offered recommendations on how to reduce the exclusion of people on the basis of factors not relevant to ones abilities, qualifications or performance (e.g., gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, race, disability, body type, etc). In addition to exclusionary factors, affinity bias for those we include based on shared interests, familiarity, and comfort level also contributes to disparities in representation. Dr. Villa-Komaroff cited research showing that diversity fuels innovation and scientific excellence. She encouraged participants to examine their biases and to view diversity as a strength of the Institute.

Dr. Villa-Komaroff’s seminar was followed by a small group discussion for faculty, attended by the GSBS Admissions Committee, entitled “Achieving Effective Mentoring, Recruitment, and Retention: A Conversation on Managing Universal Biases. ” Dr. Villa-Komaroff encouraged faculty to consider trainees as capable of success despite appearance, dress, speech pattern or lack of “conventional” academic path; to provide safe spaces for trainees to discuss their identities and interests and to help them navigate and make sense of invalidating experiences. Dr. Villa-Komaroff warned against holding different standards for those from underrepresented groups or of taking a colorblind approach that ignores race, gender or other important social identities because this “denies the formative effect of these identities on trainees’ experiences in their programs and later careers.

To improve recruitment efforts at the Institute, Dr. Villa-Komaroff encouraged attendees to advertise job opportunities broadly, structure interviews to avoid biases, determine the weight and priority of criteria to entry prior to interviews, and to inspect job requirements and metrics for biases. Dr. Villa-Komaroff emphasized the importance of holding those who are on selection committees accountable during the application and selection processes; and of educating them to recognize and mitigate their own implicit biases.

The seminar and small group discussion were sponsored by the DEI Council and hosted by Drs. Angelica Rocha (Diversity Officer, Sanford Burnham Prebys) and Paula Checchi (DEI Education and Training Committee); both from the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.

Lydia Villa-Komaroff, Ph.D. Molecular Biologist & Business Executive Founder & President, Intersections Consulting Co-founder, SACNAS