MIT's Diversity Summit 2015

Discrimination based on race, gender, sexuality and cultural background is a very real part of the academic culture. At the Annual Diversity Summit, MIT works to make visible both the diversity within the community and structures of discrimination. Under the banner "Hacking the community" panel debates and workshops invite to discussion and constructive problem solution. What are the problems and what can be done to address them?

I am impressed by the genuine effort MIT put into not only paying lip service to diversity issues but actually getting to the root causes and do something about them. This is a situation where MIT's can-do attitude is channeled in the right direction. It is clear that a lot of work remains to be done, but there is a real sense of increased awareness.

The most valuable part of the summit for me was the community workshop where we discussed how to construct a more respectful and aware community. We discussed how to challenge assumptions, how imposter syndrome hits harder at already marginalized members of the community, how different levels of networking- and mentoring organizations can counteract segregation and how discussion surrounding the #BlackLivesMatters movement still displays much ignorance about racial questions in the MIT community. We talked about how to be an active rather than passive bystander.

Keynote talk by institute community and equity officer Ed Bertschinger

#MITdiversity

American Society for Microbiology General Meeting 2014

ASM always reminds me of a microbial cell. Huge and complex and full of incomprehensible activity. An endless array of posters and talks and stressed scientist running to get to just that one session in time. But somehow it all works and you leave with new ideas.

This time I was in luck since the meeting was in Boston. Not being jet lagged or trying to sleep in an overcrowded hostel made wonders for my spirits. I presented my Single Cell poster the second day and had the rest of the meeting free to interact with a convention center full of microbiologists.

The Archaea session was very good with personal heroes like Christa Schleper and Sonja Albers. It is a rare opportunity to hear all available archaeal model systems presented in one session.

Opening speaker Ove Hoegh-Guldberg reminded us of the importance of our work with a status report of coral reefs in a warming ocean. Seen in his TedTalk:

Ocean Sciences meeting, Honolulu 2014

My first Ocean Sciences meeting was the largest of them all. 10000 strong at the conference center in Honolulu. I was there with the DeLong lab and gave a talk about my Single Cell Genomic study from the Aloha Station. It was daunting that my first dip of my toe in the waters of oceanography was in company of all the big fish of the field.

The keynote speaker was spectacular. Elizabeth Kapu'uwailani Lindsey told us about her work to preserve the knowledge from indigenous people. With her upbringing in a traditional Hawaiian society and close study under one of the last Polynesian navigator priests, she has a very rare insight in how rich the knowledge is that is threatened to be lost forever. See her Ted talk here:

I also greatly enjoyed Roger Hanlon's plenary session on how not to be seen - cuttlefish style, as explain in his TedTalk here: