Biochemistry Welcomes Everyone.

The Department of Biochemistry is committed to achieving excellence by promoting a culture of diversity and inclusion for all students, staff, and faculty. We seek to foster an environment of inclusion through the development of a supportive community of people with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives, which will serve as the foundation for teaching and learning. We aim to improve our recruitment, retention and success of all underrepresented groups through a number of initiatives led by our departmental diversity and inclusion committee in collaboration with graduate and undergraduate cohorts.

Biochemistry DEI Initiatives in Operation

Outreach

• SCOPE: Science Community Outreach Program and Education
  • Scientists visit local schools to teach laboratory concepts
• Multiple summer research training programs
  
  • STEM Routes: An initiative that brings underserved undergraduate students into labs to do research and work with graduate student mentors
  • The CU Boulder Summer Multicultural Access to Research Training

Undergraduate programs

• Wuttke/Beckman Scholars program
• The Pre-Collegiate Development program
• Miramonte Arts & Sciences Program 
• CU Partnerships for Informal Science Education in the Community
• Biological Sciences Initiative (BSI Scholars)
• Beckman Scholars
• UPLIFT program through STEM Routes

Admissions and Recruitment for Biochemistry PhD program

• Participation in the Colorado Advantage program
• Long-term relationships with universities serving BIPOC students
• A presence at national meetings that support BIPOC students
  
  • ABRCMS
  • SACNAS
• The removal of the GRE testing requirement from our application
• Graduate program application fee waiver for those who qualify
• DEI presentation and group discussion during recruitment weekend

Faculty Diversity Efforts

• Participating in a CU initiative for a diversity-focused faculty hire
• Mentoring and support of diverse faculty
• Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experience in Research (CIMER) training of all faculty

Inclusion and Retention

• Frequent student ‘town hall’ meetings
• Student lunch series with individual faculty members
• Biochemistry department climate survey (2020) and debrief (2021)
• Department-wide laboratory compacts
• Weekly Biochemistry Department e-Newsletter
• Student leadership committees
  
  • Peer to peer network, for Biochemistry PhD student mentoring
  • Faculty Liaison Council (FLC)
  • Student committee for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
• DEI workshop at retreat and Spring activity (2022: Difficult Conversations workshop)

Graduate Interdisciplinary Training Programs

• NIH Cellular Signaling and Regulation (SCR) T32
• NIH Biophysics T32

CU-Wide Inclusion Programs

• OUT in STEM (oSTEM)
• CU Café
• Women in Science and Engineering (WISE)
• Center for Inclusion and Social Change
• CU Office of Diversity, Equity, and Community Engagement

Getting Involved

Faculty DEI committee: Deborah Wuttke (chair), Jim Goodrich, and Alexandra Whiteley
Student DEI committee: Miranda Juarros (chair), Li-Yi Cheng (associate chair), James Pratt, and Chelsea Toner (climate survey)

In addition to the committees above, Biochemistry graduate students have volunteered to act as liaisons for various community organizations on campus. The graduate school also has a list of community resources that our graduate students are encouraged to participate in.