Summary: <br> When Dr. Kenneth Gibbs talks about diversity and inclusion in the sciences, it’s not just a cause célèbre. It’s personal.<br> <br> <br> <br> “For those of you who don’t know me, I am a Black man. A descendent from enslaved Africans here in America, so my family has been here for hundreds of years. That’s part of my story.”<br> <br> <br> <br> And while his grandfathers had 4th and 8th grade educations, his parents were able to go college in the 1970s because of public investment in programs like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upward_Bound">Upward Bound</a>. He and his sisters were able to go to graduate school.<br> <br> <br> <br> “I had a PhD from Stanford by the time I was 27,” Dr. Gibbs recalls. “You can see that arc, but you can also see that when I got that PhD, I was the only black man in my building for that five years that wasn’t a mailman, janitor, or technician.”<br> <br> <br> <br> He finishes, “There’s nothing wrong with any of those jobs, but I said, ‘There’s something kind of “off” here.'”<br> <br> <br> <br> Now, he’s working to fix the system, and to make science look more like society.<br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> Diversity is Not Enough<br> <br> <br> <br> Dr. Kenneth Gibbs<br> <br> <br> <br> This week, we talk with <a href="https://twitter.com/kennygibbsphd">Dr. Kenneth Gibbs</a>, Director of the Postdoctoral Research Associate Training Program at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.<br> <br> <br> <br> His recent article, <a href="https://www.ascb.org/publications-columns/science-and-society/promoting-diversity-and-advancing-racial-equity-in-the-biomedical-sciences/">Promoting diversity and advancing racial equity in the biomedical sciences</a>, talks about the importance and impact of making academia a welcoming space for people from historically underrepresented minority groups.<br> <br> <br> <br> In our interview, Dr. Gibbs tells the story of how a few of his friends responded to their graduate school training:<br> <br> <br> <br> “Three of my friends who are all black women went to elite East Coast institutions and published first-author papers in single-word journals. Two of them had such terrible experiences in grad school they said ‘I’ll never do science again.‘ One said ‘I’ll do science, but I’ll never do academia.‘”<br> <br> <br> <br> “And I thought, ‘Well thats a damn shame!‘ <br> <br> <br> <br> “It’s a shame for them, because they have been brutalized and they have experienced this bias they should not experience. And it’s a shame for us, because they are publishing at the top of their fields and if we can not create a space for them to contribute and be excellent and be who they are, then we are all losing.”<br> <br> <br> <br> Dr. Gibbs debunks some misconceptions about diversity, and argues that we need to go beyond just admitting students from historically underrepresented minority backgrounds – we need to make laboratories and classrooms a place where <a href="https://www.ascb.org/publications-columns/science-and-society/promoting-diversity-and-advancing-racial-equity-in-the-biomedical-sciences/">“everyone can show up and contribute as their full selves.</a>“<br> <br> <br> <br> We hope you will join the conversation – leave a comment below with your experience or ideas, or send us an <a href="mailto:podcast@hellophd.com">email</a> or <a href="http://twitter.com/hellophd">Tweet.</a><br> <br> <br> <br> Back to Basics<br> <br> <br> <br> Our ethanol this week is the <a href="https://www.bellsbeer.com/beer/year-round/bells-amber-ale">Amber Ale from Bell’s Brewing</a> in Comstock,...
