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IMAGE: At the time of this publication, our lab meetings typically consisted of one principal investigator, 5-10 graduate students, one postdoctoral fellow, some undergraduates, and a few visiting students.
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Credit: Courtesy Caitlin Hurd
A new paper, published recently in
PLOS Computational Biology by a team including UMass Amherst researchers, seeks to help scientists structure their lab-group meetings so that they are more inclusive, more productive and, ultimately, lead to better science.
The word "scientist" might conjure images of lab-coated researchers tending bubbling beakers or building supercomputers, but an enormous amount of scientific work takes place around a conference table during weekly group meetings. "There is plenty of good research showing that diversity and inclusion make the science itself better," says Kadambari Devarajan, one of the paper's co-lead authors and a graduate student in organismic and evolutionary biology as well as environmental conservation. Such diversity and inclusion starts with the structure of the lab meeting itself. Kadambari and her colleagues developed a set of ten guiding principles that help to cultivate lab environments that are inclusive as well productive lab environment, which range from the practical--"Rule 2: Identify roles and rules" and "Rule 6: Manage conflict"--to the interpersonal: "Rule 5: Be respectful and practice civility" and "Rule 9: Be aware of biases."