The overall mission of the Undergraduate Outreach subgroup is to increase the recruitment of underrepresented minorities (URMs) to research positions in SysBio at the undergraduate level and to increase the number of URMs from both the undergraduate and post-baccalaureate levels who continue onto graduate studies. To do so, we will identify and mitigate structural barriers in the application, selection, and funding stages as well as identify and address gaps in inclusion and mentorship.

Past and Current activities:

In the pandemic years, we have focused our efforts on improving existing programs in the Sysbio department and Harvard.

• We established a new one-on-one mentorship program for students participating in the Sysbio summer internship program. The goal of the program is to help students successfully navigate full-time research, improve their scientific communication and to provide personalized career development guidance. In the pilot program in 2021, we had 20 volunteer mentors from the Sysbio department, both at graduate and postdoctoral levels.

• We participated in the first two Women of Color (W+OC) workshops, where we hosted an information and Q&A session for participants to help them apply to the SSQB PhD program.

• We have worked closely with students both within and outside Harvard to provide help with career planning beyond college, particularly with applying to and choosing the most suitable PhD programs for them.

Future goals:

In addition to continuing and expanding the programs described above, going forward we seek to more effectively reach out to students at other universities. We are always interested in finding new opportunities to help, so if you have ideas please join us!