GIANT project, Allies in STEM, was represented at the 2024 Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity (CoNECD) conference held in Arlington, Virginia. Doctoral students Emily Lawson-Bulten (Agricultural and Biological Engineering) and Mia Renna (Civil and Environmental Engineering, currently at the University of Maryland) presented their paper, Tailoring DEIA Programming through Current Field Analysis: Promoting Allyship in STEM of University Graduate Students to a captive audience about their programmatic activities to build a cadre of allies at the University of Illinois.
Allies in STEM has established in 2020 as a collaborative project between the Graduate Women in the Society of Women Engineers (GradSWE) and the Society for the Advancement of Chicano/ Hispanic and Native Americans in the Sciences (SACNAS) with the goal to increase the number of allies on campus to improve the inclusivity of minorities in STEM. Diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) programming was developed to create concrete, demographic-specific strategies for allyship as informed by existing research within the literature to address the unique challenges faced by individuals within specific marginalized groups. The 2024 CoNECD paper explores and measures areas where allyship is needed within STEM through assessing discrimination experiences and opinions on inclusivity to guide future AiS programming.