DEI in CCE
Spring Into STEM at Caltech
Women in Chemistry (WiC) spearheaded the Spring into STEM at Caltech event, which took place on Saturday, April 27, 2024 on the Beckman Mall. This event invited various Girl Scout Cadette troops, troop leaders and parents for an afternoon of diving into STEM with Caltech graduate women. Prof. Sarah Reisman – WiC faculty advisor – gave opening remarks, highlighting the importance of girls in STEM spaces and encouraging them to have fun exploring. Divisions joining CCE were BBE, EAS and GPS. Activities, lab tours and demonstrations spanned a range of science fields including chemistry, biology, geophysics, planetary science, engineering, and applied physics.
DEI Coordinators
In the effort to promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in individual research groups, CCE adopted a new group role, the DEI Coordinator. Modeled after the existing Safety Coordinator role, the purpose of the DEI Coordinator is to help foster a healthy, diversity-oriented space within their research group and to discuss and encourage participation in DEI-related ideas and initiatives.
Meet a few of our new DEI coordinators!
Marva Tariq
Marva Tariq is a third-year graduate student and the DEI Coordinator for the Stoltz lab. In addition, she is the current Media Communication and Event Coordinator on the Diversity in Chemistry Initiative (DICI) Board.
On February 22, 2024, Marva organized the “Celebrating Black Chemists” a morning coffee and pastries event held in the Schlinger Courtyard. It was well attended by the CCE community.
Verena Neufeld
Verena is a postdoc in the Chan Group working in theoretical and computational chemistry at the interface to condensed matter physics and materials science.
"I believe that DEI efforts are crucial in academia. The distribution of researchers in the overall field of quantum chemistry could and should be much more diverse than it is, and I’m interested in helping to improve this... As a DEI group coordinator, I can support CCE’s DEI efforts and bring DEI closer to my research group, such as advertising DEI events, discussing DEI topics and being a point of contact for group members if they have questions about DEI."