This session will offer an opportunity for participants to get to know one another and establish the ground rules for inclusive and supportive discussions (adapted from the University of Michigan’s Program on Intergroup Relations).

This session will feature a panel of speakers discussing successful strategies for recruiting and retaining diverse students, faculty, and/or staff. Confirmed speakers include: Melissa Pespeni (UVM) and Vijay Kanagala (UVM)

Scientific talks by people of color, women, LGBTQIA+ people, and other underrepresented minorities in Network Science who are on/near the job market. Proposals to present will be solicited on the satellite website and selected no less than 2 months prior to the conference. This session will be broadly advertised and open to anyone recruiting in the upcoming year (not just satellite participants).

Mentors representing various dimensions of diversity will be available to eat lunch with interested junior scholars. Modeled after the International Communication Association’s Diversity Office Hours. Note: We are currently seeking sponsorship to offset the cost of providing lunch.

Based on the “decolonize your syllabus” guidelines by Yvette DeChavez, we will assemble articles, chapters, and books on core Network Science topics written by people of color, women, LGBTQIA+ people, and other underrepresented minorities in Network Science. The list will be broadly circulated after the conference so that other scholars can read, cite, and assign diverse authors.

This session will start with a panel discussion by a group of young network scientists on the barriers facing people of color, women, LGBTQIA+ people, and other underrepresented groups in academia and research. The discussion will also highlight current resources and opportunities available, and the resources still missing. Following this, we will break out into groups to brainstorm possible solutions to these and other barriers facing researchers from various dimensions of diversity. A brief summary of ideas will be presented at the end of the session. A longer review will be published and broadly shared with the wider Network Science community after the conference so that Network Science conference and society leadership,  senior scholars, faculty, and others can look to this for ideas on resources and support they can offer to the next generation of network scientists.

Confirmed panelists include: Sarah Shugars (Ph.D. student, Northeastern University), Jose Luis Herrera Diestra (Postdoctoral Fellow, ICTP Sao Paulo), Emma Towlson (Associate Research Scientist, Northeastern University), and José R. Nicolás (Postdoctoral Fellow, National Autonomous University of Mexico).