Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion & Outreach

Our lab promotes diversity and anti-racism. We learn, listen, and act in order to improve diversity, equity and inclusion in our lab and community.

We are committed to increasing diversity (i.e., race, ethnicity, age, gender identity, religion, disability, and sexual orientation) in the Harvard community, including underrepresented minorities (URM) and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) students and researchers, and to creating a lab and work culture that is welcoming and supportive of all members.

Listen, Learn, and Discuss.

Lab. The Uno Lab holds weekly lab meetings that include scientific paper discussions. This includes papers focused on Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging (EDIB) in Earth and Life Sciences and STEM. Some important EDIB papers are listed below. Members of our lab are encouraged to participate in EDIB work because it is essential to our community.

Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging at Harvard. We are active members of the DIB community at Harvard.

Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion at Lamont (2016-2023). We were an active part of the DEI community at Lamont, which included our former Assistant Director for Academic Affairs and Diversity at Lamont, Kuheli Dutt, numerous faculty and postdocs, and a fantastic group of graduate students. The Lamont Diversity Affairs website contains excellent resources and we highlight two programs here: We participated in Race Talk, a discussion group founded by graduate students Kailani Acosta, Lorelei Curtin, and Carly Peltier. Race Talk discussed books and film that highlight structural racism that prior to the killing of George Floyd, was unfortunately unseen by many of us. We also participated in the Gender and Diversity Hour, an informal monthly gathering, where matters pertaining to gender and diversity in STEM fields were discussed.

Commit and Act.

• We were formerly part of URGE Lamont, a group of Lamonters taking part in the Unlearning Racism in the Geosciences course offered online in 2021.

• We mentor and train URM, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ students and researchers in our lab.

• We recruit URM, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ summer interns through the Undergraduate Summer Intern Program, often from Primarily Undergraduate Institutions, small colleges, or community colleges, or from the Secondary School Field Research Program (SSFRP) run by Bob Newton.

• Lab PI Kevin Uno has designed a three-week short course as part of his NSF-CAREER award that will recruit graduate students, postdocs, and early career faculty from underrepresented groups in STEM, including African nationals, to participate. The CAREER project will also train students through SSFRP, which uses a multi-tiered mentoring approach.

• Postdoc Rachel Lupien servedon the BPE Seminar Series committee that increased the number of women and URM speakers.

• Uno was the faculty coordinator (2020-2021) for the Lamont Earth Science Colloquium Series where he and the student committee increased speaker diversity.

• Uno worked with Kuheli Dutt , the Director’s Office, and the Lamont HR office in 2020-21 to make significant changes the research faculty search process at Lamont to improve faculty diversity.

“The geosciences are among the least diverse science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields in the United States, with almost 90% of doctoral degrees awarded to White people.”

-Kuheli Dutt (Nature Geoscience, 2020)

Outreach & Service