Hypervisible and Human

TY - JOUR

T1 - Hypervisible and Human

AU - Nelson, Robin G.

N1 - Funding Information: A result of reduced diversity in the biological anthropology research community is that minority views, life experiences, and insights are marginalized or ignored. Such marginalization reduces the impact, quality, and scope of the research done in this field. The unique perspectives and experiences of researchers in a diverse scientific community constitute a knowledge base that can readily be used to help navigate issues and solve problems in a variety of contexts and promote creativity in basic and applied research. Currently, such opportunities are very limited in biological anthropology. To help increase the ethnic diversity of researchers in the field of biological anthropology and achieve the benefits of a diverse scientific community, the AAPA Committee on Diversity (COD) was created in 2006 and incorporated into AAPA bylaws as a standing committee in 2011. The COD supports a number of programs targeted at enhancing minority participation in biological anthropology, including the COD Undergraduate Research Symposium and the Increasing Diversity in Evolutionary Anthropological Sciences (IDEAS) program. The IDEAS program, funded by the National Science Foundation, works to induce culture change in biological anthropology and to promote the training and inclusion of ethnically diverse scholars. The IDEAS program accomplishes this goal by creating mentoring groups of minority professors, postdoctoral scholars, and graduate and undergraduate students with similar scientific interests. The main mentoring focus is a day-long workshop held the day before the annual AAPA conference that includes scientific presentations, group discussions on diversity issues and related experiences in academia, discussions of ongoing research, and professionalization. The workshop also includes networking activities throughout the AAPA meeting week to enable participants to meet researchers and begin to build research and support networks. Beyond the academic training component, the IDEAS program fosters networks for biological anthropology minority students and scholars to explore interests and voice concerns in a socially supportive space. The inaugural workshop was held in 2016, and as of 2018 the program has forty-six participant alumni. In addition, to highlight minority scholars and their research in the field, the IDEAS program has partnered with the BOAS network to produce publicly accessible videos. The initial set of videos, filmed in 2016, featured minority scientists discussing their research and path to biological anthropology. The videos filmed in 2017 feature AAPA IDEAS student alumni and their experiences at the AAPA national meetings and thoughts about the field of biological anthropology.

PY - 2019/5

Y1 - 2019/5

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85062817701&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85062817701&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1111/aman.13214

DO - 10.1111/aman.13214

M3 - Letter

AN - SCOPUS:85062817701

SN - 0002-7294

VL - 121

SP - 469

EP - 470

JO - American Anthropologist

JF - American Anthropologist

IS - 2

ER -