Organization highlight: Chemical Engineering DEI Committee

Graduate student Alexandra Ramos Figueroa and postdoc Alam Mahmud have been involved in the Chemical Engineering Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Committee. Below are some examples of the activities they have been working on.

Committee members participate in three meetings per quarter with the Advocacy and Resources group centered around the DEI forum: a pre-forum meeting, the community forum, and the post-forum discussions. They also take part in regular social events hosted by the committee, such as the Food Extravaganza, Donuts & Bagels, Journal Clubs, and many others.

Alexandra held the role of Coordinator between 2022 and 2024. In this role, she held monthly check-in meetings with a staff member and a faculty representative from the Advocacy and Resources group. She also participated in initiatives such as the URM Conference, SSTEP Program, and the AIChE Graduate Fair Booth, and coordinated the committee's social events.

Alam has been serving as the postdoc representative of the Committee since spring 2024. In this role, Alam gathers the concerns of the postdocs in the department and communicates the best ways to address them with the department Coordinator and the DEI Committee. 

The ChemE Food Extravaganza Events support ChemE diversity and create a sense of community to increase awareness and knowledge related to DEI issues. At the Fall 2023 event, dinner and cocktails were provided from a lot of different cultures and countries. About 100 people attended, including 15 Bao Group students. The Spring 2024 event provided tacos, refreshments, ice pops and fruits. This event was geared towards introducing the new AY 2024-25 Committee, of which Alam is part, and was attended by 60 people, including 8 Bao Group students.

The ChemE Graduate Student Underrepresented Minorities (URM) Tailored Recruiting Strategy aims to inform, educate and reach more high-achieving diverse communities to provide travel support. Alexandra has been working on strategizing how to approach students from URM and has created initiatives with the department to:

• Increase DEI conference participation
• Supplement conference travel to provide ChemE PhD program information session given to local URM colleges and universities
• Host virtual coffee chat follow ups for specific conferences

This year, Alexandra will be participating in the 2024 AIChE Conference as a department representative to set up a graduate school admission information booth, and to run a workshop about demystifying the graduate admissions and selection process at Stanford geared towards first-generation, low income URM students.

The ChemE Journal Club is held once per year or quarter during Colloquium, and aims to foster an engaging dialogue on DEI initiatives within engineering education, examining current research and findings across undergraduate and graduate programs. Speakers are invited within the Chemical Engineering realm who research best practices for DEI of chemical engineering students. 

Alexandra and Alam have been doing excellent work for diversity, equity and inclusion. Please reach out to them if you would like to be involved!