How Welcoming Is Your Workspace?

For a space where scientists spend a considerable amount of time, the laboratory is often a lackluster environment. We’ve all seen labs cluttered with egregious piles of equipment or strewn with Fischer Scientific catalogs and potentially useful Styrofoam boxes, the lab doors bare aside from a list of emergency contacts, and, if you’re lucky, a few cut-out photographs from last year’s Entomological Society of America insect calendar. More importantly, how often are new lab members reliant on the wisdom of the long-term technician or postdoc to find the new sleeves of Petri dishes or the large-sized gloves amidst the chaos of an unorganized space? We believe the setting in which we work can have a significant impact on our well-being. We feel most scientifically creative and productive when we’re safe and supported in our lab environment. The lab environment is not just the physical space that we occupy; it represents the lab community and its values. Though there is a certain charm to a dingy but well-loved space, there are many tangible ways to make a lab space and lab community feel more open and inviting. Share information between lab members. Label equipment and storage areas, create digital repositories, and make a lab directory with contact information. This lessens the knowledge gap between new and senior members of the lab, as well as keeping the lab organized and functioning smoothly. Consider how your lab communicates. We have found that the messaging app Slack works well, that channels set for storing lab protocols, ordering information, colony care, and even fun channels for sharing recipes and memes. Develop a safety stash for your lab. We were inspired to do so by a tweet from Dr. Tera Levin at the University of Pittsburgh. Ours has pain medication, cough drops, toiletries, hair ties, emergency lunch options, and sweet treats. Post stickers, posters, or notes that reflect the values of your lab. Pictured above, the entrance to the Hermann Lab of Arthropod Ecology and Trophic Interactions includes stickers of our study organisms, reminders that it’s okay to not be okay, photos of the lab doing fieldwork, and a massive Pride flag. Institute a “crappy/happy” introduction into your lab meetings. At the start of our lab meetings, we all share one crappy thing and one happy thing from the week, which has been a great bonding tool for all lab members (including the undergraduates) and highlights our shared struggles. Take workshops together on diversity, equity, and inclusion in your workspace. At our home institution, we have the Rainbow Network, which allows prospective students to readily identify research groups where faculty and lab members have received training on LGBTQ+ issues and are committed to inclusivity. Incorporate group lab readings that show how DEI can be integrated into the lab space. This offers an opportunity for all members of the lab to feel welcome and prompts conversations about inclusivity and equity in your space. Recommended papers include McGill et al. 2021 (“You Are Welcome Here: A Practical Guide to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for Undergraduates Embarking on an Ecological Research Experience”) and Chaudhury et al. 2020 (“Next Steps in Dismantling Discrimination: Lessons from Ecology and Conservation Science”). Create a field safety plan specific to your lab’s needs with inclusivity in mind. At the beginning of the summer, we sat as a group with our new crop of undergraduates to devise a field safety plan for any situations that might arise and facilitated an honest conversation about the intersection of race/ gender identity and field safety. (Part of this included drafting a step-by-step guide for what to do if pulled over by the police.) Our lab at Penn State provides bright field safety vests adorned with the PSU logo so that all lab members can be easily identified in the field. On field sampling days, we communicate which lab members are participating and share the addresses of the sampling sites. Though these steps may seem inconsequential compared to the structural change needed in scientific institutions to guide our community toward inclusivity and equity, change can start with how you maintain your lab environment. Lillian Germeroth (M.S. student) and Jess Kansman (postdoc fellow) are members of the Hermann Arthropod Ecology and Trophic Interactions Lab (PI Sara Hermann) at Penn State University in University Park, PA. This article is written to reflect the development of community and inclusivity efforts in the Hermann lab.

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