The goal of our working group is to strategize inclusive application and evaluation methods for the recruitment of postdocs and faculty. 

Current Goals: We are creating a centralized application process for interested postdoc candidates in the department of Systems Biology that will allow us to collect data about candidates’ demographics, background, and research interests. We aim to launch the application portal in March 2022. 

Future Goals: Our next phase would be data analysis, accountability, and influencing the recruitment and evaluation process by implementing ways for the fair and transparent assessment of candidates. We view this centralized application portal as a pilot that can be expanded to other departments within the Harvard Medical School. In addition to  the application process, we are structuring methods to introduce postdoc cohorts in the department to strengthen the sense of community and belonging. We have begun working with the Harvard Medical School Office for Diversity Inclusion and Community Partnership to increase the visibility of our department to institutions that specialize in training underrepresented and students of color. 

At the faculty level, our goal is to work with the faculty hiring committee to strategize fair evaluation methods and implement candidate-departmental trainee interaction and feedback metrics in the recruitment of faculty candidates valuing DEIB.