The Social Issues in Biology (SIIB) journal club at Harvard Medical School (HMS) aims to provide a space for students, postdocs and staff to discuss how science impacts society and how society impacts science.
Following the success of the initial series, which was titled “Race in Academia”, it was carried forward into an online platform to broaden access to discussion materials.
The goal of the modules is to facilitate conversations that explore, engage and challenge our current understandings of and relationships with Race and Racism in the biosciences.These resources were developed with the aim of lowering the activation energy needed for groups to host these challenging discussions within their departments. The hope is that by enabling a bottom-up cultural shift, individual labs and social groups will be empowered to engage deeply with their understanding of Race in Biosciences and in Academia at large. If these communities feel equipped to translate their new knowledge into action, it will contribute to advancing diversity, equity, inclusion and justice at Harvard and beyond.