At our kick-off meeting, the entire team worked together to develop a COFFIES Mission statement for Diversity and Inclusion team:
We believe that diversity is a strength that drives innovation, creativity and engagement. We are committed to modeling diversity and inclusion for the scientific community, and to maintaining an inclusive environment with equitable treatment for all. We will research and develop tools and best practices to implement in our management structure and education programs that ensure a welcoming, nurturing and robustly inclusive community.
We will:
- Practice the Platinum Rule: treat others the way they want to be treated.
- Work to understand and welcome those who are different.
- Stamp out conscious and unconscious biases.
- Be open to new ideas and ways of thinking and learning.
- Create more than one pathway for success.
- Be champions for change in our community.
ALL COFFIES members are expected to participate in DEIA initiatives.
Recent DEIA Events & Initiatives:
Apr 2024 - Total Eclipse Outreach
- COFFIES Members Shea Hess Webber and Spyros Kasapis visited two local schools in Dallas, TX, specifically serving neurodivergent students, to discuss intersting Sun science and prepare students for the total eclipse.
Dec 2023 - AGU Outreach
- At the fall 2023 AGU meeting COFFIES participated in a community event at the Exploratorium in San Francisco that invited the local public to learn about heliophysics and other AGU science areas. The COFFIES Team used the MagicPlanet digital projection globe to display solar data. COFFIES programs employ MagicPlanet and Science on a Sphere (SoS) to reach a large number of participants each year. Volunteers included John Erickson, Shea Hess Webber, Alex Koufos and Bryan Mendez.
- We also organized an informal AGU event for prospective graduate students interested in applying for graduate school opportunities in heliophysics, led by Ruizhu Chen, Ritu Curt and Lisa Upton.
- COFFIES hosted a NASA booth table to communicate COFFIES Science to the broader AGU community, including many students. Volunteers at the table included Ritu Curt, Nick Featherstone, Shea Hess Webber and Alex Koufos.
Nov 2023 - NSBP Conference, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
- Attendees: Isaac Asante, Kinfe Gebreegzabihar, Slava Sadykov
- Our Team members supported UCAR’s Heliophysics booth jointly with colleagues from other DRIVE Science Centers, PUNCH and beyond. Isaac and Kinfe presented at the conference, and Isaac received a poster award!
Oct 2023 - Annular/Partial Eclipse Events
- COFFIES co-sponsored (with the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, KIPAC) a community event in October 2023 at Stanford related to the annular solar eclipse that helped kick off the Heliophysics Big Year (HBY). More than 3300 community members attended the fair and learned about the Sun and other astronomical science. The event was featured in local newspapers and the Stanford Campus Newsletter. COFFIES organizers include Ritu Curt, Shea Hess Webber and Alex Koufos. COFFIES volunteers include Marc DeRosa, Spyros Kasapis and Sushant Mahajan.
- Additional COFFIES-supported events occured in New Mexico (Jason Jackiewicz and Julio Morales) and in Colombia, South America (Milo Buitrago-Casas)!
Ongoing - Mentorship Training with Movement Consulting
- 2024 Participants: Nicholas Brummell, Spyros Kasapis, Bryan Mendez, Sushant Mahajan, Aimee Norton, JT Stefan
- 2023 Participants: Shea Hess Webber, Loren Matilsky
Ongoing - Supporting the Heliophysics Big Year
- COFFIES has aimed to incorporate HBY Monthly Themes into our monthly science seminars. Either the seminar itself has been on-theme, or we have begun the seminar with a brief explanation and example of the theme.
- For the total solar eclipse in April 2024, as well as in support of the June HBY Performance Art Theme, COFFIES staff (led by Aimee Norton) engaged with the Shared Sky project of the Poets for Science organization. The group invited people to share their experiences via an interactive online poetry project celebrating the science and wonder of the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse at https://eclipse.poetsforscience.org/
- COFFIES plans to spearhead the October 2024 HBY Theme: Solar Cycle & Solar Max
Ongoing - COFFIES Beans Program
- We sponsor a variety of activities for our early career members (termed COFFIES Beans) to highlight their science and support their career development, as well as cohort building events. For example, at our Team Meeting in January 2024, Beans presented their research at posters in the Physics Department lobby at Stanford University. Beans attendees also spent a fun evening together bowling. We provide supplementary mentoring for COFFIES Beans by both peers and science members at COFFIES institutions. All of these activities (and more) are coordinated by the Beans Committee.
- The Beans Program is now primarily a “For-Beans-By-Beans” initiative. Current Beans Committe Members include Tamar Ervin (grad student), Sushant Mahajan (postdoc), JT Stefan (postdoc) and Oana Vesa (grad student). Beans Baristas are Jason Jackiewicz and Slava Sadykov.