INSPYRE Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) Plan
The INSPYRE PI team is committed to using this multi-year campaign as a platform to foster
inclusive participation and equitable outcomes for historically underrepresented groups in
Atmospheric Sciences, which is among the least diverse STEM fields (Bernard et al. 2018). We
will also identify and mitigate barriers to an inclusive working environment specific to our EVS
proposal. To promote a diverse, equitable, inclusive, and accessible (DEIA) environment we
engage in the following activities:
(1) Hire a DEIA expert/team:
We will contract with DEIA experts/groups/professionals to be funded through the Earth Science
Project Offices (ESPO). This team will work with the PI/Deputy PIs to provide expert guidance
in constructing surveys and codes of conduct, implementing training, and tracking inclusions
across all elements of INSPYRE. Details of these elements are provided below.
(2) Field Campaign and Team Training:
Field campaigns have been identified as environments prone to “hostile work environment”
sexual harassment, especially toward junior women by senior men (Clancy et al, 2014, Fisher et
al. 2021). Contributing factors include the unconventional work environment (long hours, remote
locations, high-stress scenarios) and a lack of communication and enforcement of sexual
harassment policy and reporting mechanisms. Following the outline in Fisher et al. 2021, to
mitigate these problematic trends INSPYRE will implement trainings available from vendors
like AdvanceGeo (https://serc.carleton.edu/advancegeo/index.html) or Periscope Theory
(https://www.periscopetheory.com) that address:
(1) Improving workplace climate: empowering individuals to become active bystanders
(2) Tackling implicit bias and microaggressions in the workplace
(3) Improving work climate: developing effective codes of conduct
(4) Implicit Biases: Why we have them and how they impact STEM
The first training will occur prior to our first field season (2026) to train field campaign
participants to recognize, report, and confront sexual harassment and other forms of unacceptable
behavior (e.g., explicit and implicit bias). If project timelines evolve we may repeat or
supplement proposed trainings.
(3) Code of Conduct:
Developing a project-wide code of conduct is an effective approach for reducing problematic
incidents and for ensuring proper reporting and recourse mechanisms are in place (Picot and
Grasham 2022). Following AdvanceGeo recommendations, an effective codes of conduct
● Identifies and defines appropriate and inappropriate behaviors
● Goes beyond ethical treatment of data to include the treatment of people
● Clearly specifies reporting and investigative procedures
● Outlines disciplinary action for conduct violations
● Includes protection against retaliation
● Has built in mechanism for continued re-evaluation of its effectiveness and for its
revision
The PIs and DEIA expert team will work together to draft the initial Code of Conduct after
completing associated training and based on those used in previous field campaigns and at field
work stations. In this phase of the code of conduct we will explicitly define and enumerate
inappropriate behaviors, the list of which is too broad to include in this document. The code of
conduct will be distributed project wide, then re-evaluated annually following our annual
assessments.
(4) Annual Assessment of our Work Climate:
Annual anonymous surveys will be used to qualitatively and quantitatively assess the project’s
work climate. This will begin in the first year with a pre-campaign survey to establish a baseline,
followed by annual post-campaign surveys. The survey questions will be generated in
consultation with external DEIA experts/groups/professionals. We expect the survey to include
measures of (1) how comfortable team members feel in raising concerns to project leadership,
(2) how familiar team members are with mechanisms for reporting issues, and (3) quantitative
and qualitative indicators of inclusion in the project. The results of these surveys will be used to
track progress towards reducing barriers to inclusion, for example by tracking the number of
interns and staff from underrepresented groups. The survey results will also be shared project
wide to foster transparency and pathways for improvement. This will be done both in written
dissemination and via reports presented by PIs and contracted teams at the annual science
meeting in dedicated DEIA sessions. We will also solicit open comments on issues that need to
be addressed or revised in the code of conduct. Survey development will be conducted with
institutional guidance and, where appropriate, third party expertise.
(5) Accessibility
INSPYRE will create accessible workspaces that accommodate team member disabilities. We
will leverage existing NASA, NRL, and UNR physical infrastructure that adheres to accessibility
standards for day-to-day work and scientific meetings. Field sites will be vetted for accessibility
compliance and specific accessibility concerns for INSPYRE participants. Virtual meetings will
use standard accessibility tools (e.g., closed captioning, etc.). The annual survey will also include
accessibility components to encourage surfacing of, and ultimately resolving, accessibility issues
that may arise.
(6) Equitable Hiring practices
Hiring is one of our main opportunities to affect the diversity of our team. Hiring is also an
avenue in which intersections amongst race, sex, age, disability status, or sexual orientation can
combine to create a systematic discrimination and disadvantage for certain individuals or groups
(Glass et al. 2023). To overcome these challenges and to generate a vibrant, diverse, and
productive research team we will take the following steps in our hiring practices:
(a) Implicit bias training for PI’s and hiring managers
(b) Rubrics and Established Interview Questions
(c) DEIA statements for applicants to upper-level positions to ensure a culture of inclusivity.
(d) Advertising to diversity-targeted job boards: One example is advertising jobs via the
Earth Sciences Women’s Network (https://eswnonline.org/).
In conjunction with our annual assessment of our work climate (see above), we will work with
external DEIA experts to annually track indicators of inclusion, including hiring of underrepresented
groups. It is our goal to annually measure the current rate of diversity within the project,
compare that with past projects and past project years, and assess how well our mitigation plans are
working for creating an inclusive work place.
(7) Mentoring and Establishing a Research Pipeline
Equitable outcomes require mentorship pipelines that engage historically underrepresented
groups upstream of “leaky pipelines”. For example, access to paid internships can overcome
some barriers for students that traditionally cannot afford to engage in unpaid undergraduate
research, and thus may lack comparable research experience to peers as they apply to graduate
programs or career positions. To address this during INSPYRE, we will encourage science teams
to budget for paid undergraduate research opportunities (UROPs) and mentorship opportunities
with NASA, JPL, NRL, UNR and other groups. For example, where possible we will leverage
existing UROP expertise at the University of Nevada, Reno
(https://www.unr.edu/undergradresearch).
(8) Effort and Budget
The INSPYRE PI team will collaborate with DEIA experts to lead our DEIA efforts outlined in
this document. Each year one of the three project PIs will lead the DEIA component of our
project, starting in year one with one of the Deputy PIs. The external DEIA professional will
maintain consistency throughout these leadership rotations. We will also include in our ROSES
call for our science teams statements requiring that all team members share a core responsibility
for inclusion that should be reflected in their proposed project components. The estimated effort
for this will be 0.25 months, which will cover developing and organizing training, completing
training, developing the code of conduct, initiating our work climate survey, and presenting
DEIA activities and assessments at the annual science meeting. We also anticipate budgeting for
paid undergraduate research opportunities, summer internships, student travel, and for third party
survey expertise.
