When international scientists from countries with a very low gross domestic product (GDP) get together at the proverbial water-cooler, we don’t talk about the weather, we talk about immigration. The conversation topics can vary between navigating a new immigration system due to an upcoming move, issues with our institution’s international office or wondering whether we will be able to secure a tra ...[Read More]
“What am I doing here?”, “Am I really good enough for this job?”, or “I was lucky this time” are thoughts that have probably crossed the minds of most of the readers here at least at some point in their careers. Even though a healthy level of self-doubt is normal for everyone, these thoughts and especially the feeling of being a fraud, can be signs of the so called imposter “syndrome”. It is estim ...[Read More]
The hard truth is, that the geosciences are among the least diverse disciplines in the wide fields of the natural sciences. When we look at the time span from 1973 to 2016, we find that 14,246 PhD degrees were given to white men, while “only” ~5234 were earned by white women in the US. These numbers are already quite shocking, but I promise you it will even get worse: a total of only 163 PhD degre ...[Read More]
During this past October, a team of researchers took part in a “hackathon” organised by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to generate data and new ideas to increase diversity in geoscience. This was an extremely hectic, sometimes stressful but fun and illuminating experience which ultimately culminated in a pilot funding bid (which we learned this week has been successful!). Our i ...[Read More]
The Earth Sciences are one of the least diverse disciplines in sciences all around the world (Marín-Spiotta et al., 2020). Often this causes discrimination and bias and might even reach up to bullying and sexual harassment at the workplace (Cantor et al., 2019; Marín-Spiotta et al., 2020). This leads to an underrepresentation of Black and African American, Hispanic, Latinex, and Asian graduate stu ...[Read More]
Did you know that political leaders in some European countries declare LGBTQIA+ as a totalitarian “ideology” that is “worse than communism” or compare gay adoption to pedophilia? This may sound unimaginable these days but those are statements that were proclaimed just recently, within the past years! The ILGA Europe publishes a review of the human rights situation of LGBTQIA+ people in Europe each ...[Read More]