{"id":361452,"date":"2019-02-01T15:23:12","date_gmt":"2019-02-01T20:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=361452"},"modified":"2023-05-12T17:36:08","modified_gmt":"2023-05-12T21:36:08","slug":"new-grad-student-chapter-tackles-underrepresentation-in-stem-361452","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/new-grad-student-chapter-tackles-underrepresentation-in-stem-361452\/","title":{"rendered":"New grad student chapter tackles underrepresentation in STEM"},"content":{"rendered":"

Raven Osborn thought long and hard about continuing a PhD at the University of Rochester. Other minority students she knew at the Medical Center had also felt the isolation, the constant \u201cbeing on edge\u201d and \u201ccode-switching\u201d\u2014shifting the way they express themselves\u2014that comes with being an underrepresented minority in a STEM field.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan I do this for another five and half years?\u201d she wondered.<\/p>\n

Antonio Tinoco, a DREAMer who was born in Mexico and raised in Los Angeles, is a fourth year PhD student in the department of chemistry on the River Campus. He can remember only one or two occasions when a visiting faculty member of underrepresented minority background was invited to give a seminar in his department.<\/p>\n

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Get involved<\/h2>\n

To join the University of Rochester chapter of ADSE or learn more, email adserochester@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to learn more about the national ADSE.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cMy goal is to go into academia to be a professor, do research, and teach. But there are so few examples to follow,\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t even know of anyone who, as a DACA recipient or DREAMer, is a professor in chemistry. So, I could easily tell myself nobody has done it; it\u2019s impossible; maybe I should look for something else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, Tinoco, Osborn, and five other graduate students have banded together to form the University of Rochester chapter of the Alliance for Diversity in Science and Engineering (ADSE). The mission of the national ADSE, which was founded in 2014, is to increase the participation of underrepresented groups in academia, industry, and government through graduate student organizations that reach out to students and scientists of all ages and backgrounds.<\/p>\n

Other ADSE chapters are at the University of California campuses at Berkeley and Davis, the University of Central Florida, the University of Colorado, Columbia University, Drexel University, Georgia Institute of Technology, University Maryland, New York University, Northeastern University, and Texas A&M.<\/p>\n

Tinoco, the president and founding member of the new chapter, says its immediate goals are twofold:<\/p>\n