Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Taskforce | AIChE

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Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Taskforce

The DEI Taskforce comprises members from the CRE community. Members nominate themselves annually by contacting a member of the taskforce and are elected by the taskforce. Current initiatives include mentoring and highlighting and honoring members of our community and adjacent communities.

Mentoring

We hold an annual mentoring program that pairs graduate students (mentees), postdocs (mentors or mentees), and professionals (mentors). Applications to become a mentor or mentee are released in the late summer/early fall of each year and pairings are made through our committee. Mentors and mentees are encouraged to meet with each other throughout the year. Additionally, a meetup is organized each year at the annual AIChE meeting.

We additionally hold periodic webinars on mentoring that anyone can attend.

Programming

Each year we organize two sessions at the annual AIChE meeting to honor members within our community and adjacent communities:

  1. a Pioneers of Catalysis and Reaction Engineering session which recognizes 5 early career professionals from academia, industry, and/or government who bring new research ideas to the fields of catalysis and reaction engineering and who have interest in engaging with AIChE CRE, and
  2. a Mid-Career Recognition session that honors two mid-career professionals from academia, industry, and/or government who have made significant contributions to catalysis and reaction engineering research. Significant emphasis is placed on honoring individuals who have been overlooked for other forms of recognition.

Pioneers and mid-career honorees are nominated within our community, and you can make a nomination for yourself or someone else by contacting a member of our community. Please note that nominations are made in the early summer of the year prior to the meeting where the recognition session will be held, i.e., ~18 months in advance.

A list of current and prior honorees is as follows:

2021

Pioneers: Sarika Goel, Carrie Farberow, Jeremy Feaster, Michele Sarazen, Linsey Seitz

2022

Pioneers: Christopher Paolucci, Deeksha Jain, Omar Abdelrahman, Kandis Leslie Abdul-Aziz, Melis Duyar
Mid career: Rebecca Fushimi

2023

Pioneers: Aleksandra Vojvodic, Robert Palomino, Stephanie Kwon, Hilal Ezgi Toraman, Andrew Medford
Mid career: Elizabeth Biddinger

2024

Pioneers: Christian Jungong, Gina Noh, Jamie Harris, Alyssa Hensley, Kelsey Stoerzinger
Mid career: Yomaira Pagan Torres, Jason Hicks

Panels

Each year we additionally organize two panels to be held at the annual AIChE meeting:

  1. Student panel: This panel is held during the student part of the AIChE meeting on the Saturday before the official start of the AIChE meeting. Panelists include professionals from academia and industry and the target audience is undergraduate students. The time and location of the panel can be found in the AIChE technical program. If you are interested in being a panelist, please contact a member of our taskforce.
  2. Future of Catalysis and Reaction Engineering panel: This panel is typically held during the Weds AM session of the annual AIChE meeting and features panelists from academia, industry, and/or government. The target audience is graduate students, postdocs, and young professionals.

Both panels are intended to enable audience members to ask questions about panelists and their career journeys. Questions can be asked directly or sent via a slido that is set up for each panel.

Social media highlights

Each month, we highlight a member of the Catalysis and Reaction Engineering or an adjacent community on our LinkedIn and X/Twitter pages. We specifically seek to highlight individuals who are not as well-known, in order to bring recognition to them. We are currently focusing on new faculty but we seek to recognize early-, mid-, and late-career members of our community. If you would like to be recognized or would like to recognize another individual, please contact a member of our taskforce.

Fundraising

We are actively seeking fundraising to fund registration for our programming honorees as well as to provide food at our panel events. If you would like to support our efforts in this regard, please contact a member of our community.

Membership