Diversity & Outreach

The Chemical and Systems Biology Diversity, Equity, Community, Inclusion, DEliberate action committee (CSB DECIDE) strives to cultivate a sense of community and inclusivity for all CSB members, including faculty, students, post-docs, and staff. The committee aims to connect CSB diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts with the broader Biosciences and Stanford community with the shared mission to foster an environment focused on equity, justice, and inclusion. Additionally, we strive to maintain a diverse and inclusive community that will bring varying perspectives and experiences to improve our scientific research.

Our mission and beliefs are congruent with the CSB admissions webpage statement that the department believes “that having a diverse community of students, faculty and staff promotes scientific discovery and innovation. We welcome applicants from diverse cultures, races and ethnicities, genders, political and religious beliefs, physical and learning differences, and sexual orientations and identities.”

Science is most successful and far reaching when practiced with colleagues that can provide different perspectives and experiences. To ensure we maintain a diverse and inclusive community, we must also recognize the barriers and challenges that the members and future members of our community may face and provide support accordingly.

Below are some examples of how we partner with department leadership to implement and promote diversity outreach efforts in our department:

1. Hold bi-monthly committee meetings. If you are part of the CSB community and would like to join, please contact danarama@stanford.edu to join our slack channel
2. Give an annual CSB department retreat presentation to engage the department and share work related to our efforts.
3. Initiate and host a Chemical and Systems Biology Information Session Webinar to clearly communicate who we are as a department and community and to make the application process more transparent and accessible for prospective students.
4. Promote DEI outreach efforts amongst the CSB community to help empower department members to engage in outreach efforts.
5. Sponsor a quarterly movie night or book club with open discussion on DEI topics.
6. Advocate for transparency and accountability in the admissions process by including more voices and perspectives

Upcoming projects:

1. Broader accessibility to resources-putting Stanford resources and admission frequently asked questions on the department website.
2. Bringing in a trained facilitator to lead department-wide DEI discussions.
3. Sponsor a department Happy Hour
4. Increase DEI outreach efforts within department
5. Have an idea for ways to contribute to department DEI outreach efforts? Please submit your idea here. The form should be anonymous unless you decide to include information on yourself.

This is a living document that will continually evolve and will be updated to include the committee’s most recent efforts in promoting DECIDE (Diversity, Equity, Community, Inclusion, and DEliberate action).

Last updated 2.16.2022