COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION
Written collaboratively by members of the Levy Research Group at the University of Washington and Emory University
(v1, 2020-21; v2 2024-2025)
OVERVIEW
The Levy Lab strives to produce collaborative science and support student learning at the intersection of environmental and human health that is informed by and celebrates diverse voices and perspectives in all the places where we work.
We recognize that diverse teams produce more innovative, creative ideas and solutions that help represent global realities and move science forward. We further recognize our own privilege in scientific and academic communities as university faculty, staff, researchers, students, and postdoctoral scholars. We are therefore committed to learning about and generating research equity within our team, our broader institutions, and our external collaborations, as part of our efforts to build a safe, inclusive, and supportive lab environment and research program for all.
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Our research group is primarily located at the University of Washington, which occupies the traditional land of the Coastal Salish people, including the Duwamish People past and present. We honor with gratitude the land itself and the Duwamish Tribe, while acknowledging that honor and gratitude is insufficient to ameliorate the multigenerational pain caused by the loss of those lands. Resources to support the Duwamish financially, including through “Real Rent” are available here.
We further recognize that much of our work is international, and this work also takes place on land that belongs to others. We currently do field work in Mozambique and Ecuador, and we acknowledge that the First Peoples of many of the communities where we work have also been occupied by other populations. These resources allow you to explore the native/indigenous peoples of an area, though data on these sites are limited for large parts of the world.
VALUES
As a global health and environmental epidemiology and microbiology research lab, we strive to create an internal environment and foster external relationships that celebrate, respect, and deliberately seek out diverse voices. We want to create an environment where everyone feels like their voices are heard, and their ideas and work are valued. We want people to feel comfortable showing up as their true selves - because we believe that you are beautiful.
We seek to attend to the process of producing scientific knowledge, and the context of where and how we do our work. We take responsibility for producing scientific knowledge with integrity within these various contexts, and believe that by doing so we will generate more valuable contributions to our interdisciplinary fields of study and the communities and individuals we impact and learn from.
We acknowledge that much of the international health work we do has its roots in colonialism, and strive to center decolonization in all our work and relationships. We work towards actively identifying and challenging inequities in our own lab environment, education, and research, as well as in our broader institutions and our collaborations, through concerted efforts to complete the actions outlined below. We commit to reviewing our progress on these goals regularly and modifying our actions as needed to achieve them.
ACTIONS LIST
Our values and vision are only as good as our actions. As such, we have developed a list of specific actions that we will prioritize within our research group to work toward the vision outlined above, in the areas of general lab actions (lab culture, research, recruitment/training/mentoring), institutional change (pedagogy, research, recruitment, training/mentorship/retention, culture), and international collaborations (capacity building, amplification of voices, creation of opportunities, decolonization approaches). We review this list, and our progress toward these actions, on a regular basis. The full action list is available by request.
The commitment to diversity of the institutions to which our research group belongs has also been articulated, and can be found at the following links: DEOHS, SPH, UW, and Emory. We strive to continually engage with these institutions to improve upon their policies.
This DE&I statement was a collaborative process which drew on the past experiences of current and former lab members and utilized a number of resources and statements from other research labs to draw inspiration, including from:
Written collaboratively by members of the Levy Research Group at the University of Washington and Emory University
(v1, 2020-21; v2 2024-2025)
OVERVIEW
The Levy Lab strives to produce collaborative science and support student learning at the intersection of environmental and human health that is informed by and celebrates diverse voices and perspectives in all the places where we work.
We recognize that diverse teams produce more innovative, creative ideas and solutions that help represent global realities and move science forward. We further recognize our own privilege in scientific and academic communities as university faculty, staff, researchers, students, and postdoctoral scholars. We are therefore committed to learning about and generating research equity within our team, our broader institutions, and our external collaborations, as part of our efforts to build a safe, inclusive, and supportive lab environment and research program for all.
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Our research group is primarily located at the University of Washington, which occupies the traditional land of the Coastal Salish people, including the Duwamish People past and present. We honor with gratitude the land itself and the Duwamish Tribe, while acknowledging that honor and gratitude is insufficient to ameliorate the multigenerational pain caused by the loss of those lands. Resources to support the Duwamish financially, including through “Real Rent” are available here.
We further recognize that much of our work is international, and this work also takes place on land that belongs to others. We currently do field work in Mozambique and Ecuador, and we acknowledge that the First Peoples of many of the communities where we work have also been occupied by other populations. These resources allow you to explore the native/indigenous peoples of an area, though data on these sites are limited for large parts of the world.
VALUES
As a global health and environmental epidemiology and microbiology research lab, we strive to create an internal environment and foster external relationships that celebrate, respect, and deliberately seek out diverse voices. We want to create an environment where everyone feels like their voices are heard, and their ideas and work are valued. We want people to feel comfortable showing up as their true selves - because we believe that you are beautiful.
We seek to attend to the process of producing scientific knowledge, and the context of where and how we do our work. We take responsibility for producing scientific knowledge with integrity within these various contexts, and believe that by doing so we will generate more valuable contributions to our interdisciplinary fields of study and the communities and individuals we impact and learn from.
We acknowledge that much of the international health work we do has its roots in colonialism, and strive to center decolonization in all our work and relationships. We work towards actively identifying and challenging inequities in our own lab environment, education, and research, as well as in our broader institutions and our collaborations, through concerted efforts to complete the actions outlined below. We commit to reviewing our progress on these goals regularly and modifying our actions as needed to achieve them.
ACTIONS LIST
Our values and vision are only as good as our actions. As such, we have developed a list of specific actions that we will prioritize within our research group to work toward the vision outlined above, in the areas of general lab actions (lab culture, research, recruitment/training/mentoring), institutional change (pedagogy, research, recruitment, training/mentorship/retention, culture), and international collaborations (capacity building, amplification of voices, creation of opportunities, decolonization approaches). We review this list, and our progress toward these actions, on a regular basis. The full action list is available by request.
The commitment to diversity of the institutions to which our research group belongs has also been articulated, and can be found at the following links: DEOHS, SPH, UW, and Emory. We strive to continually engage with these institutions to improve upon their policies.
This DE&I statement was a collaborative process which drew on the past experiences of current and former lab members and utilized a number of resources and statements from other research labs to draw inspiration, including from: