During this time, Oindrila De (then a member of the Career Development Subcommittee) approached the leadership within the Early Career Leadership Program with an idea to increase accessibility at GSA and address the needs of early career scientists with disabilities. “At a young age,” says De, “I became sensitized to the needs of people with disabilities, as I witnessed the challenges of my older brother’s visual impairment. My passion for supporting people with disabilities grew stronger, and I began incorporating accessibility in my professional endeavors. In September 2020, I went to the leadership with a proposal to implement accessibility measures at GSA, which included accessibility of web resources, closed captions for online meetings, and increased visibility of people with disabilities. We briefly discussed the scope of this idea and thought of developing it into an ECLP project. With incredible support and guidance from Molly Matty and Jessica Vélez, I formed the Accessibility and Disability Advocacy Group in April 2021.” 

This interest group consisted of members from ECLP subcommittees, who served as liaisons. Meeting bi-monthly, we led discussions to learn about disability, inclusive language, and etiquette, and we ideated ways to improve accessibility of existing projects, resources, conferences, and other programming at GSA by using concepts of universal design. ECLP leaders Gavin Rice, Adelita Mendoza, Madhumala K. Sadanandappa, David Peede, Nele Haelterman, Leire Abalde-Atristain, Corey Calhoun, and Karyn Onyeneho graciously volunteered to serve as members of this group and helped to communicate ideas and disseminate knowledge to ECLP subcommittees.

After realizing that the group’s objectives required proactive long-term efforts as we continue learning about disability and accessibility, the needs of the GSA community, and ways to cater to those needs with current technology, we sought to establish a dedicatedAccessibility Subcommittee, with Oindrila De and Adelita Mendoza serving as Co-chairs. Aside from benefiting the GSA community as a whole, we envisioned that this subcommittee would provide excellent leadership and training opportunities for current and future ECLP members, and it would be a feasible and sustainable way to recruit members annually to lead the endeavor. GSA leadership was extremely supportive of this goal, and within a matter of a few months, the group was officially recognized as an official ECLP subcommittee. In February 2022, the subcommittee onboarded the first cohort of new members Jillian Freese, Peiwei Chen, Alyssa Paparella, Anna Moyer, and Selcan Aydin.

This transition promptly bore fruits, as the subcommittee recruited two advisors with ample experience in matters of accessibility advocacy. Ahna Skop is a professor of genetics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, studying the function of midbody-associated RNA. Skop has a long-standing trajectory as mentor and inclusion advocate, while also suffering from Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. In 2018, she was awarded the first ever Inclusive Excellence Award by the American Society for Cell Biology and Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She recently served as an advisor to the chief diversity officer at the NIH, and she is a diversity consultant to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. In 2019, she was honored as one of 125 women in STEM with an American Association for the Advancement of Science IF/THEN Ambassadorship. The subcommittee is also very fortunate to have Stephen Klusza as an advisor. He is an Assistant Professor of Biology at Clayton State University. Klusza focuses on increasing accessibility to model organism research through the creation of low-cost reagents/protocols and creating quality, low or no-cost educational resources with ADA compliance to remove all barriers to quality education for all students. He also does scientific outreach with neighboring communities and advocates for disability representation in STEM.

Since its inception, the subcommittee has accomplished many milestones and made several recommendations to GSA staff and committees. The first initiative was to have Otter.ai closed captions at all online meetings and virtual events within the ECLP and at GSA conferences. We suggested the inclusion of an open-ended “accommodations request” field in registration forms for online events. We also prepared an exhaustive list of suggestions to improve accessibility at GSA Conferences and presented them to the Conferences Committee. One of the subcommittee’s recommendations, which was included in presenter guidelines in 2022 GSA Conferences, was to use colorblind-friendly palettes and accessible fonts in oral and poster presentations. Additionally, extra seating was made available at poster sessions, per the suggestion of the subcommittee. “Accessibility” was included as a component in ECLP project proposals, and the subcommittee members evaluated accessibility of new project ideas. 

The subcommittee collaborated with the Career Development Subcommittee and hosted a #WorkshopWednesday on “Building an Inclusive and Accessible Environment in Academia,” a virtual panel discussion featuring Alyssa Paparella, Stephen Klusza, and Vance Martin, who spoke about ways to be a better ally to people with disabilities. In October 2022, we launched a new workshop series “Accessibility in STEM (AiS),” with the inaugural event on “How to Make Teaching Accessible,” where experts Logan Gin, Ingrid Steiner, and Sheryl Burgstahler discussed best practices in inclusive teaching. The subcommittee’s current ongoing projects include surveying the ECLP community for access needs and knowledge of accommodation requirements, creating a resources blog, and working with the Equity and Inclusion Committee to make GSA events more accessible.

The journey is still a work in progress. The subcommittee’s routine meetings and discussions continue to teach us about the diversity of disability, barriers to access, and the need for accommodations. The subcommittee members and advisors actively advocate for accessibility and have helped foster an inclusive culture and build a safe community, where everyone feels welcome. 2023 marks the second year of recruiting new members, and the subcommittee welcomes Pravrutha Raman, Riya Mahapatra, José Humberto da Cunha, and Meareg Gebreegziabher Amare to the team! The subcommittee hopes to continue expanding efforts to make ECLP and GSA more inclusive and accessible to all scientists.

To learn more about the Accessibility Subcommittee, you can visit their webpage. If you have any ideas or suggestions, we encourage you to reach out to engagement@genetics-gsa.org.

The GSA Equity and Inclusion (E&I) Committee has been engaged in a number of projects designed to meet the goals outlined in our framework for making progress toward an equitable, anti-racist future. Here, we discuss the past two years of work; in early 2023, we will share plans and ideas for our next activities.

Bringing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Scholarship to GSA Conferences

Since 2020, GSA-sponsored conferences have adopted a model, proposed by the E&I committee, that acknowledges the importance of DEI discussions accessible to all meeting attendees, highlighting the value that GSA sees in DEI scholarship. All GSA-sponsored conferences now include sessions that focus on promoting DEI scholarship and sharing expertise on DEI-related initiatives. These sessions are scheduled within the main program and, importantly, without competing parallel sessions. This approach increases engagement because attendees don’t have to choose between DEI and research talks; it also underscores the message that DEI is a critical component of the scientific enterprise.

Vision for Inclusive Conferences

After helping conference organizers to program DEI sessions for 2020 and 2021 meetings, the E&I committee began work on a document meant to provide guidance and a common starting point for all future organizers. Led by Andy Arsham and Sarah Bay with contributions from Anna Allen, Matthew Hahn, Olumuyiwa Igbalajobi, and Aimee Jaramillo-Lambert, our Vision for Inclusive Conferences is now part of the onboarding process for all scientist volunteers who organize a GSA-sponsored conference. The Vision takes a holistic view of conference programming and suggests ways that inclusion can (and should) be centered at all stages of the planning process. It provides guidelines for selecting an organizing committee, inviting speakers and session chairs, and other actions needed to build inclusion into all aspects of the meeting. 

We’re excited to share the Vision for Inclusive Conferences with anyone (including individuals and organizations beyond GSA) who might find it a useful resource: https://genetics-gsa.org/vision-for-inclusive-conferences/ 

Presidential Membership Initiative
The Presidential Membership Initiative (PMI), now starting its third year, continues to grow. PMI cohorts participate in activities aimed at integrating them into GSA and connecting them with senior members to function as mentors and supporters through their careers. Presidential Members (PM) receive no-cost, one-year memberships to GSA and a waived conference abstract fee. Twenty-seven PMs have attended five GSA conferences in 2021-2022, and 32% renewed their membership past their initial year. The GSA community benefits greatly from participation of this diverse (Figure 1), engaged, and enthusiastic group in workshops, conferences, events, and research efforts. Applications for the 2023 PMI cohort are live now and close December 16, 2022. Look out for PMI meet-ups at upcoming conferences in 2023.

The Neighborhood Program

In early 2021, the E&I committee started work on a new project now called The Neighborhood Program. This program, which will begin rolling out in 2023, is an innovative way to develop tight-knit, collaborative groups of colleagues who are intentional in their efforts to improve the understanding of science in the public, specifically within systemically minoritized populations. These “neighborhoods,” led by early career scientists, will be united by a common interest in a science-in-society problem. The program will engage scientists from a variety of backgrounds, identities, and career stages, and the resulting neighborhoods will have the potential to address critically urgent research needs of minoritized communities and will enable powerful conversations at the intersection of culture, society and environment, and shared scientific goals. Examples of science-in-society problems include health inequities, mitigating effects of climate change or environmental toxins, understanding developmental impacts of stress or isolation, or leveraging adaptation of animal species to hazardous environments to reduce risk in affected communities. 

Why The Neighborhood Program? Many enter science with a personal drive to improve the lives of the people who matter most to them. Often, this mission is redirected, with traditional training approaches encouraging assimilation, foregoing an opportunity to strengthen community connections, and dimming trainees’ cultural interests. The Neighborhood Program flips the model by building high-impact science on a foundation of cultural and community knowledge. The approach maintains the core mission of community-focused scientists while providing connection to experts with shared interests.

We piloted this program in June 2022, where four talented Presidential Members served as “Block Captains” and led the first two Neighborhoods in efforts to address health disparities in diabetes and in women’s health. We plan to expand the effort in the coming years, including via a workshop at Dros23; if you’re interested in learning more or getting involved, please email equityinclusion@genetics-gsa.org.  

In July 2022, we submitted a grant for funding to support development and expansion of this program. The proposal effort was led by Sarah Bay, Alana O’Reilly, and Tracey DePellegrin, and supported by GSA’s Mary Adams (Controller), contractors Jacquelyn Roberts and Becky Carroll, the GSA E&I committee, the Society for Developmental Biology’s Anita Quintana and Ida Chow (Executive Director), and the American Cancer Society’s Tawana Thomas-Johnson (Senior Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer) and William Dahut (Chief Scientific Officer). The funding opportunity we pursued was recently launched by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate of Biology and is called Leading Culture Change through Professional Societies of Biology (BIO-LEAPS). The NSF’s goal is to fund scientific societies to develop innovative programming that will “enact culture change that results in welcoming climates for diverse individuals.” The premise is that scientific societies have the power to influence and implement change via education and mentoring, conferences, awards, and publishing. We recently received reviews on our proposal and plan to revise and resubmit in 2023.

Partnering with Experts to Learn and Grow

Alongside the activities of the E&I Committee, GSA is excited to announce that it has invested in a partnership with Shari Dunn of ITBOM Consulting to offer innovative online training focused on equity and inclusion to staff, committee members, and leadership beginning in late November 2022. Shari Dunn is an expert in nonprofit business management, and her approach is rooted in history. ITBOM’s learning platform contains a 16-course suite of modules that cover a range of topics including unconscious bias, communication across differences, lessons from experts on disability inclusion and LGBTQ+ inclusion, and more.

By engaging with the material developed by ITBOM, GSA staff and scientist volunteers will reach a common level of understanding on topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Working from the same foundation will facilitate progress in these areas across the Society and its activities. We’re excited to build a shared knowledge base to support growth towards an equitable future.

Sustaining Action Into the Future

As part of our long-term vision for promoting actionable changes in equity and inclusion in GSA, we have formalized protocols to ensure that the membership of the Equity and Inclusion Committee reflects our goals to this end through the following mechanisms:

• Membership: Members of the committee serve two-year terms to maximize the diversity of our committee and provide frequent opportunities for prospective members to apply to serve. Applications for prospective members will open each year in October, with reviews and selections to be conducted by the end of the year. New members will be onboarded in January of the next year.
• Leadership: For better transparency and improved leadership continuity, we have formalized our leadership succession planning. In future, members will serve first as junior co-chair for one year and then become senior co-chair in the following year; in some cases, members may serve a third year as senior co-chair. Chairs will turn over in January of each year.

Previous Updates from the E&I Committee

• GSA’s commitment to dismantling racism in science: building a plan for sustained action
• Equity and Inclusion Update: The Presidential Membership Initiative
• Understanding who we are

As announced earlier this year, GSA’s Board of Directors launched an audit to review the five major awards conferred by the Society: the Edward Novitski Prize, the Elizabeth W. Jones Award for Excellence in Education, the Genetics Society of America Medal, the George W. Beadle Award, and the Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal.

The central goal of the audit was answering a key question: Do our current awards exemplify the GSA community’s core values? To answer this question, the audit assessed three essential components of the awards program: 1) the nomination process, 2) the review process, and 3) the eligibility and criteria used to confer each of the five awards. The Awards Audit Task Force discussed these components, looking for sources of bias, unintended barriers, and ways to diversify the nominees—and thus the award winners. The Task Force also met with focus groups to bring in a wider variety of opinions and points of view.

Based on the audit, the Task Force proposes the following changes to the GSA Awards process:

Nomination Process

Previously, two letters of support were required: an initial nomination letter, including a description of the nominee’s merit for the particular award and a letter of support from a secondary nominator. The letter of support could be co-signed by as many individuals as were willing. Nominees were then approached to provide an up-to-date CV. 

The audit identified a number of potential barriers and sources of bias within the existing nomination process. We have revamped the process in the following ways:

First, the Task Force recommends moving to a single nomination letter with a supporting questionnaire specific to the particular award. This questionnaire will help standardize the information collected on each nominee; nominees will help their nominators complete the questionnaire. The nominee will be contacted to provide an NIH-style biosketch (no more than five pages) and a brief lived experience statement. This statement allows nominees to volunteer information about their career paths, including potential barriers that they have faced and/or overcome, without requiring disclosure; it also lets nominees present their research/mentoring/teaching/DEI philosophies for consideration in addition to their biosketch. We invite self-nominations; self-nominators should reach out to a colleague to co-sign their nomination.

Second, GSA will create a GSA Awards Nomination Committee comprising members from the community representing the richness and diversity of the society. This subcommittee will proactively invite nominations from various departments, schools, model organism boards, and other relevant groups. The goal is to broaden the pool of nominees from a wide variety of backgrounds. 

Finally, as part of GSA’s efforts to improve equity and inclusion, we will collect nominee demographic data on a volunteer basis to help us gauge our progress. We strongly encourage nominees to answer demographic questions; their answers will not affect the committee’s decision-making process and will be kept confidential.

After five years, this new nomination process will be reviewed by the Board to assess the degree of success.

Review Process

The GSA Awards Committee oversees the review process. Members of the Awards Committee are appointed to a three-year term by the GSA President and Board of Directors. The committee reviews all nomination materials and identifies three candidates for each award. The three candidates from each award are submitted to the Board of Directors for consideration, and the Board votes to select the awardee.

The audit found that the review process did not need significant changes. 

Award Descriptions and Criteria

The audit revealed a measure of confusion about the potential overlap in criteria for some awards. Specifically, the Task Force noted that the Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal and the Genetics Society of America Medal were often both used as lifetime achievement awards. The Beadle Award and Novitski Prize were both used to recognize contributions via community-resource/reagent creation. Additionally, the lack of recognition for early- and mid-career scientists was obvious. 

To best address these deficits, the criteria for each award will be refined as follows to best reflect GSA’s ethos and the goal of each award. Notably, the GSA Medal will now be explicitly defined as a mid-career award, and a new Early Career Medal will be added to the slate.

• The Morgan Medal will remain a lifetime recognition of an individual based on their contributions to the field of genetics, which include mentoring, community service and research portfolio.
• The GSA Medal will now be awarded at mid-career to an individual with seven to 15 years of experience in their independent research career at the time of nomination. The awardee will be recognized for their research excellence, mentoring, community engagement, and other related activities.
• A new GSA Early Career Medal will be awarded to an early-career individual within the first seven years of their independent research career at the time of nomination. The awardee will be recognized for their research excellence, mentoring, community engagement, and other related activities.
• The Novitski Prize will recognize creativity at all career stages, including graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty. The nomination must clearly state the creative effort being recognized, and up to two individuals may jointly receive the prize.
• The Jones Award will continue to recognize the contribution to education from K-12 onwards. Individuals and teams can be nominated.
• The Beadle Award recognizes an individual’s service to the community. Beadle nominees should have clear and demonstrable community engagement, service, and leadership beyond research endeavors. GSA will particularly invite nominations of individuals who have worked to make the community more inclusive and diverse. Individuals and teams can be nominated.

Timeline

To give us time to enact these changes and ensure process updates, the Task Force recommended extending the awards cycle timeline. The Board of Directors discussed this recommendation and agreed that GSA will not announce any awards for 2022. Instead, applications will be solicited early in 2023 to be awarded in summer of the same year.

We’re taking time to get to know the members of the GSA’s Early Career Scientist Committees. Join us to learn more about our early career scientist advocates.

Kristen Navarro

Communication and Outreach Subcommittee

Ohio State University

Research Interest

My love of science did not initially come from a place of positivity or wonder. It came from a place of failure. All my life, I was abysmal at mathematics, which proved problematic as it became part of more and more of the school subjects throughout my early education. For the longest time, I felt extremely excluded by the sciences due to my inability to perform well mathematically, and I was at risk of leaving the field altogether. Just as all hope was lost, I discovered genetics.

Here was a field that, at the time, required far less mathematics than such disciplines as physics or chemistry. I found it so intriguing that the field focused on inheritance and the passing down of predominantly qualitative features: a person’s eye color, the color of a single kernel of corn, the shape of a flower, and so on.

For someone like me with a predominantly visual mind, this form of alternative analysis allowed me to quickly grasp and fall in love with science and the critical thinking needed for experimentation. Another wonderful feature of genetics is its flexibility and applicability to countless other scientific disciplines. I discovered cell and developmental biology from the qualitative analysis performed in genetics and appreciated how these disciplines were able to determine key molecular mechanisms from further qualitative analysis, like examining cellular behavior and animal development.

However, cell and developmental biology also intrigued me because I was able to learn critical and statistical analysis in a way that felt more relevant and easier to grasp than my many high school math classes. When combined all together, I was able to find a place in science not only where I belonged but also where I could study clinically relevant issues, such as human diseases and disorders.

Currently, I am extremely passionate about applying fundamental biology concepts and mechanisms to translational research. My current thesis work reflects this interest. In short, I am studying the transmembrane emp24 domain (TMED) proteins in C. elegans. The TMED protein family is highly conserved, so studying the molecular mechanisms is important for understanding how these proteins might be involved in health and disease. C. elegans, a model organism relegated to basic biology, is also an amazing example of applying basic biology concepts to translational experiments, thanks to its high genome conservation with humans.

As a PhD-trained scientist, you have many career options. What interests you the most?

I am most interested in pursuing the academic career track and becoming a principal investigator at an R1 institution. Ever since I started doing research in my undergraduate career, I have been interested in becoming a PI. I enjoyed seeing how my mentor was free to pursue his scientific passions and share his interests with undergraduate students who wanted research experience.

Like me, he was from a marginalized background, which was very impactful as all the scientists I had met or seen on television up to that point were not. He made me realize that we need more PIs from marginalized backgrounds. We can provide critical perspectives and insights into the scientific field that may not have been offered by other, more privileged scientists.

I also firmly believe that by writing, a key component of any PI’s career, I can provide my perspective on my selected field. Aligning with one of the core missions of the Communications and Outreach Subcommittee, I would strive to write about and share my suggestions for diversifying the sciences—a goal easily accomplished as a PI.

Additionally, I have long had a strong affinity for mentorship, and I love being able to teach and guide others through the scientific field. As a researcher, I have been blessed to be able to directly impact the lives of undergraduate students working in my lab by passing down valuable lessons and stories from my scientific career. As a graduate teaching assistant, I have also been able to share my wisdom with my students. By becoming a PI, someone whose personal responsibility is to mentor along with conducting research, I will be equipped to guide countless students across all levels, igniting within them a deep appreciation of and curiosity for science. Now, more than ever, it is critical to encourage students to enter and remain in the scientific discipline. Becoming a PI will give me a direct route to do just that.

In addition to your research, how do you want to advance the scientific enterprise?

Through my thesis work, I have gained the skills necessary to learn about and connect the fundamental molecular mechanisms and classical genetics I am working on with topics that may fascinate a wider audience, such as human health and disease. In the future, I would like to take the skills that basic science has given me and switch to the more translational sciences. I would like to advance the understanding of mechanisms involved in genetic diseases and disorders by applying discoveries first made in basic science model organisms and continue by studying them in vertebrate orthologues, such as cell lines and human tissue samples. I want to continue exploring the cellular, molecular, and genetic causes of diseases by further exploring preliminary work done in orthologous model organisms.

I would also like to make novel discoveries of my own and contribute new findings to my future field. I hope to inspire myself and others by discovering new potential causes of and therapeutic targets for a variety of diseases with complex causes. Finally, to further advance the scientific enterprise, I would like to be someone who can talk and write about science simply. Now, more than ever, it is critical to be able to discuss science in an easy-to-understand fashion and spread that information in an accessible way.

As a leader within the Genetics Society of America, what do you hope to accomplish?

As a leader within the Genetics Society of America, I hope to leave behind a legacy of challenging and overcoming systemic issues caused by the lack of consistent, meaningful, and diverse access to scientific understanding. Though Gregor Mendel had good intentions when studying his pea plants, the field created in his wake—genetics—has historically been used to harm marginalized peoples. From assigning one’s “fitness” to the shape of their skull or color of their skin to irrevocably altering a woman’s body without her consent, the field of genetics has a long and bloodied history of oppression and cruelty.

Even today, awful beliefs caused by those unscientific fallacies continue to perpetuate systemic harm and suffering. With this historical precedent, I, a woman of color who would have been part of the “genetically inferior,” strive to give the Genetics Society of America the perspective and critical thinking on how to communicate science, especially genetics, to groups who have been historically damaged by individuals claiming to work as scientists.

I aim to use my writing abilities to produce works that can bring understanding of all the sciences to all audiences. My dream is to help dismantle the negative associations and cruel history of genetics and make it a discipline that everyone, especially marginalized people, can access and enjoy. By working closely with the Communications and Outreach Subcommittee, I can reach both the general and marginalized audiences with my published works. The subcommittee will provide me with the tools, critique, and assistance to ensure that I meet my desired goals. Ultimately, I hope to serve as one of many who are actively working to educate the public on the virtues of science, hopefully contributing to undoing the harm caused in the name of science.

Guest post by J. Humberto Cunha, Danielle F. Mello, and Jadson Carlos dos Santos.

The Genetics Society of America, Portuguese Multilingual Seminar took place on November 16, 2021, and was attended by four guest panelists and three organizers with diverse scientific backgrounds, from different regions of the world. The panel was designed to represent the diversity of the Brazilian scientific population, considering gender, region of origin, area of expertise, and ethnicity.

The event was held entirely in Portuguese and was focused on the central theme of scientific communication in English for non-native speakers. It highlighted the importance of bringing together diverse experiences and views to discuss the challenges and opportunities in building an international scientific career.  Here are some of the insights and tips the panelists shared with their audience:

Challenges for Portuguese-speaking scientists

During the seminar, guests shared the challenges of adapting to a new language, country, and way of communicating science. Despite the diversity of origins and training, the panelists had several points in common. These included the role language plays as one is adapting to a new country, and the social issues surrounding the study of English.

Among the points addressed, the following stand out:

English language and culture are not the same throughout the world

Although English is considered the “language of science,” certain variations, such as those in American and British English, can make scientific understanding difficult. Grammatical dissimilarities for example, can sometimes make writing and understanding scientific articles more difficult.

But the biggest challenge highlighted by the panelists involved spoken English and cultural differences.

The English spoken in different regions of the world can be considerably different. This diversity in accents, everyday expressions, and scientific jargon is an additional challenge for learners looking to master the language and actively participate in scientific discussions.

Additionally, being in a region of the globe with an entirely different history and traditions can add an extra level of challenges for communicating science. Depending on what region or community the scientist is now in, science may take place in a very different environment than what they were previously used to. It may be more formal or strict, increasing language barriers and posing an extra weight on the foreign scientist to bear. Or, as is often the case, science may take place in a more friendly and welcoming environment, allowing the scientist to feel comfortable and encouraged to overcome any language or cultural barrier.

Differences in basic education aggravate inclusion in science

In Brazil, the education system introduces students to English very early in their schooling. However, the intensity and quality of English exposure is far from homogeneous, depending on the nation’s region and its level of development. This factor, combined with socio-racial issues, can make learning a new language unattainable for future scientists and aggravate diversity, inclusion, and equity in science.

Even scientists struggle with scientific jargons

Each scientific area has specific technical terms or jargon used not only in scientific publications but also as a part of a scientist’s everyday life. The proper use of this kind of vocabulary can be particularly challenging for non-native speakers and this challenge can be even greater when they have a different background or are starting in another scientific area.

Unexpectedly, studying or practicing science in a foreign country also presents challenges when the scientist shares science in their native language, in our case, Portuguese. This is because scientists sometimes learn different technical terms for the first time in English and are either unaware of their Portuguese translation, or often these terms have never been translated. As highlighted during our seminar, making an effort to have these terms translated is important to ensure inclusion in science.

By aiming for perfect English, Brazilians increase their socialization barriers in the new country

Another factor that posed a significant challenge, according to the panelists, was difficulty socializing in an English-speaking country. In addition to the role that cultural environment plays in facilitating or aggravating socialization, a scientist’s own insecurity about communicating properly in the foreign language can also contribute to the challenges they face. Most panelists agreed that this insecurity can be linked to the fact that most Brazilians worry about speaking with faultless grammar, which is probably due to the prevailing English course systems in Brazil.

Practical tips for overcoming the English language barrier

Each of the invited panelists suggested valuable tips for understanding the language with less headache or butterflies in the stomach. Some of the recommended tips include:

1. Try not to get stuck in the grammatical rules of English. Accept the fact that it is okay to make mistakes and that jest and mimicry can be a great ally in your every day or scientific conversations.
2. Be mindful of the fact that many native English speakers can only speak English and so they are usually impressed with people that can speak more than one language.
3. A critical factor to truly experience the English language is continuous exposure through various experiences and sources (for example, traveling for tourism or scientific conferences, social events, music, movies, TV shows, social media). 
4. When living abroad, try not to limit your social interactions to other Brazilians or foreigners only.
5. Always have a book in the English language handy to better understand text interpretation and expand your vocabulary.
6. And last but not the least, if you are unable to travel to an English-speaking country, always be aware of opportunities where you can listen to native English speakers through virtual meetings, such as events held by the Genetic Society of America.

About the author

J. Humberto Cunha graduated in Biomedical Science and is a member of the Genetics Society of America. He is also the Creative Director at Academic Genetics League.

Danielle F. Mello, PhD, is a postdoctoral researcher at the laboratory of Environmental Marine Sciences (LEMAR UMR 6539), Functional Physiology of Marine Organisms Unit at Ifremer/University of Western Britanny, France.

Jadson C. Santos (Jall) is a PhD Candidate and Project Manager. He is the Co-chair of the Career Development Subcommittee at Genetics Society of America’s Early Career Leadership Program. He also writes a newsletter about Scientific Leadership, Collaboration, and Project Management for Scientists.

I am a former women’s NCAA swimmer, and I support Lia Thomas.

Guest post by Sam Sharpe PhD.

interACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth is the oldest and largest nonprofit dedicated to advancing the legal and human rights of people born with intersex traits. Founded in 2006, interACT oversees the largest youth-led intersex advocacy group in the United States, is at the forefront of intersex litigation, and regularly advises public and private entities on how best to support the needs of intersex people. interACT’s mission is to put an end to non-consensual, medically unnecessary surgeries performed on intersex children in an attempt to erase their intersex traits and make their bodies conform to society’s perception of what a “normal” body is supposed to look like. 

Education and raising awareness about intersex issues is also a big part of what we do at interACT. Last year, we partnered with GSA and pgED to co-present a webinar discussing the relationship of sex and genetics, the long history of sex testing in athletics, and how these practices still have lasting impacts today. As of April 2022, at least 10 states have implemented legislation explicitly banning transgender youth from participating on sports teams that are in alignment with their gender identity, and 15 states have banned trans youth from seeking life-saving gender-affirming health care. While these anti-transgender laws are explicitly designed to discriminate against transgender people, many don’t realize that they also affect intersex people. You can learn more about how on our website.

In this post, Sam Sharpe details the historical context for these pervasive laws and the bogus arguments that attempt to link high testosterone levels to an inherent increase in athleticism, but in reality, do nothing more than showcase society’s intransigent commitment to transphobia, intersexphobia, and the patriarchal policing of women’s bodies.  

-Bria Brown-King, interACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth

I am also a trans and intersex person, a lifelong athlete, and a biologist. I vehemently believe trans women belong in women’s sport, and I recognize that the backlash that accompanies any level of success by a trans woman athlete is part of a much larger history and context.  

Sex verification and suspicion  

Outrage and suspicion based on the idea that men are pretending to be women in order to dominate women’s sports goes back over 100 years. 

When women’s participation in athletics increased in the early 1900s, this created significant anxiety that the position of (white) men in society was being threatened and the (white) ideal of women as delicate, feminine, and passive was in jeopardy. These concerns ranged from the myth that exercise and sport could damage reproductive capacity to the belief that the strained facial expressions of women athletes during exertion were unfeminine and ugly. 

As women’s involvement in sports grew, and it became apparent that women actually can excel at sports without their internal organs falling out, suspicions arose that these fast, strong, muscular athletes might not actually be women. As a result, women athletes were required to bring “medical femininity certificates” to verify their sex to international competitions beginning in the 1940s and 50s.

In the 1960s, the success of the Soviet Union in women’s athletics increased anxieties about the “authenticity” of women athletes’ sex and the possibility that men disguised as women were competing in women’s events. The “medical femininity certificate” was replaced by a requirement that a panel of doctors examine the genitals of every woman competing in international athletic competitions. This was humiliating and short lived; it was soon replaced by chromosomal testing.

However, even chromosomal testing proved to be an ineffective method of “sex verification” because human sex comprises multiple traits which come in different combinations. From the late 1960s until 2000, this policy failed to identify any men pretending to be women, but it did identify, humiliate, and traumatize multiple intersex women athletes born with traits such as Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome—meaning that they have XY chromosomes but no ability to respond to testosterone. Some of these athletes did not previously know that they were intersex and only found out upon their disqualification from competition for traits of which they had no prior awareness.  

After mandatory chromosomal testing was deemed unethical and traumatic for intersex athletes and abolished in 1999, the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) maintained the ability to perform selective sex testing, later reclassified as “hyperandrogenism testing,” on women athletes if questions arose about their sex. In 2018, after protests from disqualified athletes, the IAAF revised the guidelines around sex verification testing. The new guidelines only applied to a handful of track and field events and stated that women athletes with “testosterone levels equalling or exceeding 5 nmol/L who are androgen sensitive” would be excluded from participation. In 2019, this was further revised to apply only to women athletes with “testosterone levels equalling or exceeding 5 nmol/L who are androgen sensitive and who have XY chromosomes and testes.” Under the current policy, the same athlete could be considered a man while running the 400 meters but a woman while running the 200 meters, highlighting the inconsistency of this definition of sex.

Trans athletes and testosterone myths

There is no single, simple, or obvious way to decide who counts as a woman because human sex refuses to be divided neatly into two categories, as is demonstrated by 60 years of failed attempts by the IAAF (now known as World Athletics). Definitions and perceptions of sex and femininity are also deeply racialized. The project of sex verification in women’s sport was precipitated by anxieties about women’s athletics threatening white femininity, and the athletes who have been subjected to “selective” hyperandrogenism testing have disproportionately been women of color from Africa and Asia who do not conform to hegemonic standards of white femininity.

Although sex verification testing has been applied to cisgender women athletes at times, all transgender women competing in women’s Olympic events were required to maintain a total serum testosterone level of below 10 nmol/L for at least 12 months prior to competition from 2003 until the 2022 Olympics. All trans women competing in women’s events in the NCAA and international athletics have been subject to regulations requiring that they be on testosterone suppressing medication, which has been shown to reduce testosterone in trans women to at or below average levels for cis women within a year.

In 2021, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) released an updated framework to go into effect after the 2022 Olympics that removes restrictions on both intersex and transgender women athlete’s testosterone levels unless it can be specifically proven that their transgender or intersex status provides a consistent, specific, and unfair advantage in their sport. 

This framework is non-binding and some federations have already said they will not accept it, but it reflects the growing evidence disproving the widespread belief that higher endogenous (naturally-occurring) testosterone levels provide a consistent and meaningful advantage across sports. A 2014 paper by Healy et al. found that elite cis men and women athletes actually had overlapping ranges of endogenous testosterone. This demonstrates both that some elite cis men athletes have testosterone levels below the typical range for cis men—yet are still elite athletes—and that endogenous testosterone levels are not the sole or defining factor separating the athletic performances of elite cis men and elite cis women athletes.

The more inclusive understanding of sex diversity outlined in the IOC’s new framework also challenges the argument that trans women should not compete in women’s sport because they supposedly possess an innate and universal athletic advantage due to being assigned male at birth, regardless of their transition status. Diversity in sex traits extends beyond endogenous testosterone levels, and there are no specific physical traits that trans women have which no cis women have. There are some cis women who are tall and muscular, who can grow beards, who produce high levels of testosterone, or who have Y chromosomes. There is immense biological variation within the category of cis women—a category which includes many intersex women. There are multiple examples of transphobic attempts to point out women athletes who are believed to be trans based on their appearance when the women in question are actually cisgender. This is simply recapitulating the anxieties and surveillance of women athletes’ biology and adherence to standards of white femininity that lead to a century of failed attempts at “verifying” woman athlete’s sex status. 

Crucially, claims that trans women have a sports performance advantage and are taking athletic opportunities away from cis women are not borne out, as there are no examples of trans women being disproportionately dominant in women’s sports. 

What constitutes an unfair advantage in sport?

Related to this discussion is also the larger question of how fairness is defined in sport. There is an inherent level of unfairness in all sports, and decisions about what is fair are not always clear cut. It’s up to the governing bodies in each sport to decide what constitutes an unfair advantage, and these decisions are continuously being revised as technology and training methods evolve.

In 2022, elite athletes are not expected to have average physical characteristics—in fact, in many sports, it’s expected that they don’t. Most naturally-occurring physical traits, even extraordinary ones, are considered fair advantages. 

Scott Hamilton, an Olympic gold medalist in figure skating, had a brain tumor as a child that prevented him from growing for several years and reduced his adult height. Being small can be an advantage in figure skating, but Scott Hamilton isn’t considered a cheater because his childhood illness made him shorter. Being tall is an advantage in volleyball, but there was no outcry that three-time Olympic gold medalist Kerri Walsh Jennings had an unfair advantage because she is 11 inches taller than the average woman in the US. There has been extensive discussion about Michael Phelps’s extraordinary body, which includes long arms, a long torso, above average flexibility, and below average lactic acid production, all of which are considered fair advantages.

However, the exceptions to this overall acceptance and celebration of unique bodies in sport are women athletes with sex traits which are perceived as failing to conform to expectations of cisnormative white femininity. These exceptions include both trans women and the cis women of color who were disqualified from sporting events because their naturally high testosterone levels were deemed an unfair advantage: Pratima Gaonkar, Santhi Soundarajan, Caster Semenya, Pinki Pramanik, Dutee Chand, Beatrice Masilingi, and Christine Mboma.

By contrast, men athletes with naturally high testosterone levels are not subjected to sex verification and are not considered to have an unfair advantage. It is inconsistent and unscientific to claim that endogenous testosterone is the only naturally occurring physical trait which provides an unfair advantage in sport (and only in women’s sport) when every other naturally occurring physical trait variation, no matter how extreme, is a fair advantage.

There are also many accepted “fair” advantages in sport that are not naturally occurring physical traits. In elite athletics, it is considered fair for athletes that have access to higher quality equipment, the ability to train full time due to economic security, and the ability to employ a full team of professionals to maintain their body to compete against athletes without these privileges.

In swimming specifically, a $500 tech suit can provide both a physical and mental advantage that increases racing performances. High school swimmers who can afford tech suits have a known advantage over high school students who can’t, but this is considered to be a fair advantage by USA Swimming and by high school conferences. We aren’t seeing legislation proposed to ban tech suits in high school swimming though, we are seeing legislation to ban trans girls from competing in high school sports because this is ultimately about bigotry and not about fairness.

Actual issues of fairness in women’s sports include the lack of opportunities, support, regulation of coaching and medical staff (extremely apparent in the exposure of extensive sexual abuse within USA gymnastics), and financial payoff for women athletes, but these issues do not generate the same level of consistent media attention or public outrage.

New headlines; old bigotry  

The public commentary about Lia Thomas has been riddled with transphobia, dehumanization, and lies under the guise of concern about women’s sport. Coming out as trans, dealing with unsupportive teammates, physically transitioning and undergoing a second puberty while training as a D1 student athlete, and then winning an event at NCAA championships is an incredible achievement—one for which Lia has been thoroughly punished. Strangers set against her participation have fabricated lies about her times pre-transition, her level of dominance post-transition, and the details of her body. Strangers supporting her have argued that her failure to break the 500 Freestyle record or to win either the 200 or the 100 Freestyle at NCAA championships means she has the right to compete. Cis women have been allowed to dominate NCAA championships for decades, but Lia daring to swim fast enough to win one race has prompted headlines about “the end of women’s sport.” To borrow from trans cyclist Rachel McKinnon: Why should a trans woman’s right to compete in sports be contingent on her not succeeding?While transmen and nonbinaryathletes face transphobia, they are not subjected to the same level of scrutiny, criticism, dehumanization, and punishment. At the end of the day, this is and has always been about the cultural obsession with scrutinizing women’s bodies and the transmisogynistic insistence that trans women are always illegitimate, deceptive, and predatory. It’s always been about fear, disgust, and dehumanization of women who aren’t seen as compliant to narrow, racist, transphobic, and exorsexist ideas about femininity. It’s always been about the anxiety that if a woman is too good at sports, she can’t possibly, really, actually be a woman.

About the Author

Sam Sharpe graduated from Carleton College in 2014 where they earned a BA in Biology and competed on the swim team for four years. They are currently working towards a PhD in Biology at Kansas State University and have presented nationally and internationally on plant evolutionary ecology, increasing inclusion in STEM education, and understanding biological variation in sex and gender. Sam served in a leadership role for the transgender student organization Gender Collective for five years and is a current board member for InterConnect.

GSA collects demographic data to measure changes in representation.

Science benefits from diversity: people from different cultures and socioeconomic groups contribute different perspectives that broaden the reach, impact, and innovation of science (McKinsey 2015, Phillips 2017, Powell 2018). The STEM community has been busy building structural changes to attract, support, and retain a more diverse workforce. At the Genetics Society of America, we are continuing our push toward an inclusive and equitable future through programs like the Presidential Membership Initiative, implementing a framework for inclusive conferences, and much more.

“What gets measured gets done.”

Although we have worked to develop programs aimed at increasing the diversity of GSA membership, we need to understand who we are now so that we can watch how we grow and change. We can measure the current and future composition of our community by collecting demographic data. Demographics tell us how we compare to the general population; can inform our recruitment and retention efforts of scientists from underrepresented, historically excluded, and minoritized populations (Burnett et al., 2022); and give us a way to measure the effects of these ongoing and future efforts.

In its recent consensus study on Measuring Sex, Gender Identity, and Sexual Orientation, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine underscore the rationale for asking these questions: “People deserve to count and be counted…Regardless of how data are collected, they reflect the identities and experiences of people and communities that deserve to be heard and respected. Everyone should be able to see themselves, and their identities, represented in surveys and other data collection instruments.” In essence: representation matters. GSA joins a growing number of organizations expanding their demographic surveys in support of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts (Else and Perkel, 2022, Rushworth et al., 2021). 

Historically, GSA collected basic race/ethnicity and binary gender data on our membership. In the fall of 2021, we significantly expanded our demographic survey to better capture diversity along a number of axes. We now ask for information on race/ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI), disability status, and disadvantaged background status.

Security and sensitivity

We understand that asking for information on your identity is asking you to trust us. We have worked hard to put together an inclusive membership form with data security at the forefront: 1) Identity data will only ever be reported in the aggregate. We will never post, publish, or share individual information, and we will group small categories where necessary to avoid revealing individual identities. 2) Your identity information will not be displayed alongside your name and contact information on the membership profile available to GSA staff. It will be displayed to you when you access your membership profile, but it will not be visible to any other members. 3) Your data is stored on a secure cloud-based system. GSA uses Salesforce to manage membership data; access is restricted to staff members based on data-level permission settings, and staff identities are verified through multi-factor authentication at login.

Demographic data is most powerful when we have high response rates, which is why these fields are required in our membership form. However, we understand that you may be hesitant to share this information with us, and we respect that point of view. You will never be required to provide information you’re uncomfortable sharing; you may choose “Prefer not to answer” for any demographic question. Choosing “Prefer not to answer” will not reflect negatively on you in any way. You are also free at any time to change your answers.

Additionally, we recognize that the wording of demographic questions and this kind of data collection are never perfect because you are humans, not data. We have carefully considered the fields we have included and the choices available within each field, but it’s likely these will evolve over time as our understanding of the nuances of various identities evolves.

From diversity to equity

With all of this in mind, we encourage you to provide demographics so that we can make data-driven assessments and ensure that we are moving the Society forward in terms of representation. This data will let us ask specific questions such as, “Does this panel represent the diversity of GSA?” and, “Are we improving representation of Black Americans in GSA?”

We hope you’ll take a moment to visit your membership profile and update your demographic information. Thank you for helping us build toward the goal of an equitable and inclusive future.

GSA announces its Awards Audit Task Force and asks for community input.

Each year, the Genetics Society of America confers five major awards: the Edward Novitski Prize, the Elizabeth W. Jones Award for Excellence in Education, the Genetics Society of America Medal, the George W. Beadle Award, and the Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal. These awards are designed to recognize and celebrate excellence across many facets of practicing science using genetics: creativity, education, service, achievement, and contribution to the field. The GSA is proud to play this role in honoring outstanding members of our community.

It is appropriate, from time to time, to step back and take stock of our Awards program to ensure it is serving its purpose fairly and equitably.

Is the nomination process clear and accessible? Is the award voting process biased? Are the interests of all members of the community represented? Is each award clearly defined? Does each award represent the evolving vision and work of the community? Are there gaps in our portfolio where new awards could be proposed? And perhaps most importantly: which scientists are missing from our nomination and awardee lists?

For now, we know that the individuals nominated for and receiving these awards do not fully reflect the diversity of scientists who use genetics. Indeed, a recent commentary from Yuh Nang Jan (University of California, San Francisco) noted that Asian scientists are underrepresented in US-based research prizes compared to their representation in other metrics of scientific success. Other scientific societies have also been doing work in this area; ASCB’s effort, led by Bill Bement (University of Wisconsin–Madison) gave rise to important recommendations we can all learn from.

GSA recognizes the importance of continuous and active work toward building a more equitable field. One critical component of this work is reflecting on our processes and programs and making needed changes; progress and process are iterative. We fully recognize that the process of further diversifying the pool of nominees and awardees can—and must—be improved.

To this end, in May 2021, the Board of Directors recognized this need and initiated an audit of our awards program to be completed this year.

Swathi Arur (University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center) and Erika Matunis (Johns Hopkins University) agreed to chair this effort. As the current and former chair of the Awards Committee (respectively), they are uniquely positioned to direct this work. Joining them on the Awards Audit Task Force are Derek Applewhite (Reed College), Steve Farber (Carnegie Institution for Science), Mary Lou Guerinot (Dartmouth College), Leonid Kruglyak (University of California, Los Angeles), Terry Magnuson (University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill), Mi Hye Song (Oakland University), and Mariana Wolfner (Cornell University).

This spring, the Task Force will meet to review processes and propose changes before the 2022 award nomination period opens in August.

As part of this important work, it’s also critical that we hear from you. GSA would like to invite our community to play a role in this effort through two mechanisms: by participating in focus groups and by sharing thoughts and suggestions through an anonymous, online survey.

• To volunteer for a one-time, one-hour virtual focus group to take place in March or April, please see here. The task force will be in touch with you soon. Please volunteer no later than March 4, 2022.
• To share your thoughts, suggestions, and feedback on the awards process, please see here. Your comments will be anonymous unless you choose to sign them. The feedback form will be open through April 30, 2022.

The goal of this Task Force is to propose changes to our current awards slate (wording of awards, criteria for awards, proposal of new awards, etc.), with a major goal of improving our nomination processes to ensure that our awards and recipients reflect the diversity of the genetics community. After the audit process, the Task Force will submit a proposal to the Board of Directors for review and approval. We will then publish a blog post detailing our findings and resulting changes.

Guest post by Mehrnaz Afkani and Parinaz Khalilzadeh.

In July 2021, as part of the Genetics Society of America’s Multilingual Seminar Series, scientists fluent in Farsi came together with a goal of connecting with each other and providing a platform for speaking about science in Farsi. This included discussing some of the issues and barriers facing Farsi-speaking scientists. With the continuous global domination of English as the “language of science” after 1967, scientific resources in English currently have the highest impact and are recognized as the most trustworthy. 

Having one dominant language in science has offered the chance to exchange knowledge and share research ideas among scientists worldwide. However, it has limitations for non-native English speakers, such as difficulties with writing grant applications and research manuscripts as well as oral presentations in English. These limitations often lead to gaps in knowledge exchanges between communities. During the seminar, two themes emerged: the difficulty of accessing scientific resources and essential employability skills in genetics. 

Access to scientific resources

During the seminar, the topic of being able to access English resources in genetics came up. Given that access is often dependent on which country you are living in, this makes it difficult for geneticists in some non-native English-speaking countries to stay up to date with the recent developments. 

As Dr. Narjes Yousefi, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and one of the Farsi seminar panelists shared, one potentially fast solution is to email the authors of books or journal articles to request a copy. This solution has the added benefit of sometimes leading to collaboration. “In my master’s study, I found out that most of the articles that I was reading were from one person who did similar studies to mine on a larger scale,” Yousefi said. “So, I contacted him by email and told him that I am doing a similar study in northern Iran. I asked for some of his papers because, at that time, they were not accessible in Iran. Then, I asked him to become my committee member, and he accepted. He helped me tremendously through my work.”

Essential employability skills in genetics

The majority of participants in the Farsi seminar were students who were eager to continue their education at the graduate level, but were concerned their skills and knowledge were not good enough, which would limit their chance to obtain a graduate position. When a student interested in genetics pursues a bachelor’s or graduate degree, they learn a general knowledge of heredity. Students also have the opportunity to enhance soft skills and gain field, laboratory, and analytical skills. However, universities’ resources in the field act like a mirror, reflecting the education quality, unique curriculum, and well-equipped laboratories, which all raise the opportunity of getting a well-paid job. 

Most of the highly equipped universities are in native English-speaking countries. Although these universities and their biology/genetics faculties are open to international students, competition is high, especially at the graduate level. This means that the difference between educational systems of developed and less-developed countries, the dominance of English language in these universities, and the availability of limited graduate-level spots can discourage some candidates. In some cases, the original country’s economic condition limits their chance in learning the most recent changes of essential skills in the genetics world. 

Our panelists, Dr. Mohammad Reza Akbari, an assistant professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, and Dr. Mojgan Padash, an assistant professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Oklahoma, both shared what their expectations were for students who wanted to pursue a graduate degree in their research group. Neither expect their incoming graduate students to know specific skills and methods. “Graduate students spend the first few months of graduate school learning essential methods for their projects. However, there are some basic things that everyone interested in genetics should know about, like DNA extraction and PCR (polymerase chain reaction),” Akbari said. Dr. Padash agreed and added that pipetting is also another fundamental skill that the student is expected to know. Every panelist agreed that at the personality level, having the right attitude toward problem solving and the drive to learn is essential.

 Dr. Ahmad Reza Katouzian, who is a professional biologist of the Alberta Society of Professional Biologists (ASPB), added that it is important to be familiar with sampling methods. “If you do fieldwork, one of your hurdles will be getting your samples to the laboratory. You will need to keep this in mind for designing your project,” Katouzian said. As for analytical skills in a graduate genetic project, Dr. Narjes Yousefi suggested that it is a good idea to learn the basics of command line and programming languages such as R or Python. “Just like for learning the English language, put a specific time aside to learn bioinformatics,” Yousefi said. 

Seminar attendees were also interested in the job market. In general, in the field of genetics, there are more job opportunities outside academia than there are within. With their experience in laboratory work, genetics students will have the opportunity to join companies that do laboratory-based work after graduation. Having bioinformatics skills enhances the chance of being hired in different biological companies. 

Existing bias in the scientific community leads to lesser engagement of non-native English-speaking geneticists. Two critical concerns for participants in the Farsi seminar were accessibility to genetics resources and limitations in learning fundamental skills. After the event, we had requests from participants to continue holding seminars and workshops on different topics such as how to write a scientific paper in English, available funds for international students, recent sequencing techniques as well as teaching programming languages such as R and Python. This is evidence that the drive to learn about genetics as a career path is strong and programs like the multilingual seminar series help people, especially incoming students, connect people with the same native language, so they can learn how to navigate scientific resources and skills.

Special thanks to Rachel Fairbank for helping review this piece and to Jessica Velez for initiating the multilingual seminar series.

About the authors:

Mehrnaz Afkani is a PhD candidate at the University of Oklahoma whose research focuses on evolution and neurogenetics. Her research uses the Drosophila melanogaster species complex to look at the female response toward the novel trait in the males called the posterior lobe. She got her master’s degree in Biosystematics from University of Tehran working on intertidal crabs. Her student group at OU, STEM Inclusion Council (SIC!), co-hosts a free coding workshop with a group of graduate students at the Miami University of Ohio.

Parinaz Khalilzadeh is a conservation geneticist. She is doing her second master’s at Laurentian University, Canada. Her research focuses on genetic monitoring of wild and reintroduced northern leopard frog (Lithobates pipiens) populations: optimization of a slow recovery. Khalilzadeh completed her first master’s degree in biodiversity and habitats at Gorgan University, Iran, where she studied the genetic diversity of the Iranian wild boar Sus Scrofa.

Guest post by Marah Wahbeh and Arby Abood.

Last year, after a casual conversation with Spanish-speaking early career scientists about the struggle of communicating their work in Spanish, Jessica Vélez, PhD, was inspired to create the Multilingual Seminar Series. This series offers an opportunity for multilingual and non-English speaking scientists and science enthusiasts to talk about science in languages other than English, while also providing a space to discuss strategies for expanding science communication efforts to include non-English speakers. 

When Jessica, who is also the GSA Membership, Engagement, and Early Career Program Manager, reached out to us to ask for our help in organizing and hosting the Arabic session, we enthusiastically agreed. Although we speak Arabic fluently, we use English to discuss our research. It wasn’t until Jessica invited us to collaborate that we realized we have isolated our identities and work as scientists from our mother tongue. This helped us realize that science accessibility has been limited in many ways to only English speakers. 

With that as our motivation, we helped create the multilingual seminar session in Arabic, both as a way to explore the linguistic gap that exists, as well as to practice speaking and discussing science in Arabic with other scientists who share the same experiences. We started planning for the session by identifying our goals, as well as potential panelists. During this phase, we realized there is a scarcity of scientific resources in Arabic, as well as Arabic-speaking science communicators, which emphasized the need for this event. 

When we reached out to potential panelists via Twitter as well as our networks, we saw first-hand a growing excitement about the opportunity to participate. Once we confirmed the panelists, we began advertising the event. Our efforts included reaching out to Arabic-speaking research groups on Facebook, sending out emails to institutions, as well as reaching out to students in the Middle East that we know. Our advertising efforts resulted in over 700 RSVPs!

The panel was comprised of Arabic-speaking scientists and science communicators from different levels of the academic track who are experts in their fields. This included: Rana Dajani, PhD; Ghada Amer, PhD; Tarek Abbas, PhD; Mouadh Benamar, PhD; and Eman Rabie, MSc. 

During the seminar, they started by sharing their career journey and experiences with science communication in Arabic. Throughout the event, the discussion was very engaging as the panel had a wide range of expertise, experiences, and opinions on the topics discussed. Everyone agreed that every person has the right to learn science, as well as have access to the benefits of its advances, and that since the majority of the world’s population don’t speak English, science communication needs to expand to include other languages. Dr. Rana Dajani, professor of biology and biotechnology at the Hashemite University in Jordan said that “sometimes we forget that language can be a barrier and have a duty to society as scientists to make science accessible to all.” 

During the session, one of the discussions was about expanding accessibility through direct (literal) translation of science concepts and words from English to Arabic. This sparked a debate on the sufficiency of translation alone and whether or not it is necessary in all cases. In the words of Dr. Tarek Abbas, Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology at the University of Virginia, “we need to differentiate between the language of science and using a language to talk about science.” Dr. Ghada Amer, Vice Dean for Postgraduate Studies and Research in the College of Engineering at Benha University, added that learning and using English is necessary for us as scientists to engage in the modern-day scientific community; however, the best scientists are those who are able to effectively communicate their science to their own communities. 

This is where science communication efforts play a huge role. Although translation can help, understanding scientific concepts requires the use of simplified language that is clear of scientific jargon, similar to discussions around science communication to an audience of English speakers. It’s also important to note that the audience for whom a scientist speaks determines the language. 

Simplified language or not, “we can’t deny that there is a benefit to a universal language for science and having it be English is just what it is now,” Dr. Abbas said. The use of one language to discuss science facilitates collaboration across the world, makes communication between scientists easier, and overall, is similar to the many other industries and professions that use English as their language of communication. 

Although many agreed with Dr. Abbas, others had the opposite idea. Because science is for everyone including all who speak different languages than English, limiting its accessibility to English speakers creates a language barrier that excludes the majority of the world’s population. This barrier can be eliminated if we expand the use of science terms to other languages. 

The panelists also shared different initiatives and efforts for communicating science in Arabic. Dr. Dajani described an initiative in Jordan that encourages students to read, write, and contribute to simple science content online in Arabic through translating Wikipedia pages. This allows contributors to learn how to engage in science in Arabic while also benefiting people who are searching for explanations of science concepts in Arabic online. Other efforts include conferences focused on showcasing Arab scientists such as MIT’s Arab Conference and Arab-American Frontiers of Science, Engineering, and Medicine Symposium. Dr. Amer shared that the Arab Science & Technology Foundation started the Center of Strategic Studies for Science and Technology last year, with the goal of engaging Arabic-speaking scientists. Moreover, networks like the Society for the Advancement of Science and Technology in the Arab World (SASTA) were mentioned as a way to connect and learn from the expertise of other Arabic-speaking scientists. The panel also suggested that future initiatives should focus on translating scientific jargon into standardized Arabic phrases, paralleling practices already implemented in Mandarin and Cantonese. 

There is a need for spaces where non-English speaking and multilingual scientists can talk about science and science communication in an inclusive way that does not exclude non-English speakers. This is highlighted by the fact that we had 200 extremely engaged participants from all over the world with differing science backgrounds. 88 responded to a feedback survey with the majority expressing positive feedback and interest in events like this in the future. As one of the attendees shared, “I think the most valuable aspect of the event was the fact that there were Arabic-speaking scientists representing different countries and each had unique interests.”

In conclusion, discussion series like GSA’s Multilingual Seminar series not only address the language barriers in science, but also stress the need to use our multilingual expertise to discuss and share science to those who don’t speak English. Moreover, given the recent uptick of misinformation perpetrated by anti-science propaganda across the world, having the tools of communicating science in two or more languages is essential.

Join the GSA’s Multilingual Slack workspace to connect with other scientists in multiple languages!

About the authors:

Abdullah “Arby” Abood is a PhD candidate, bioinformatician, and data scientist at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. Arby’s research focuses on leveraging the transcriptome to inform bone mineral density (BMD) genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Arby is an alumnus of the NIH Biomedical Data Science training grant. Website: www.arby-abood.com Twitter: @ArbyAbood

Marah Wahbeh is a member of the Early Career Scientist Policy and Advocacy Subcommittee and a 5th year PhD candidate in Human Genetics at Johns Hopkins. She works in the lab of Dimitri Avramopoulos where she studies schizophrenia genetic risk variants in stem cells.