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Our Philosophy

We at the Geffen lab are committed to fighting against racism, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, transphobia, and other forms of discrimination. We commit to working towards an open and equitable environment. We denounce racism and discrimination in all forms and will work to provide opportunities to all scientists.

At this time of national reckoning, we need to address systemic racism against Black people. Systemic racism causes harm to Black people. Police kill unarmed Black people at 3-5 times the rate of unarmed white people. Racism is not just systemic to policing but is also systemic in scientific research. Our community has long been aware of the obstacles hindering the success of BIPOC researchers. Systemic racism is still evident in the lack of diversity at all levels of academia, as well as in the bias against Black scientists in grant funding rates. We acknowledge that the scientific community needs to attract, support, and promote Black scientists. We denounce systemic racism and commit to calling it out and fighting against it. We stand with our Black colleagues and neighbors. We assert your right to safety and your right to succeed in STEM. Black Lives Matter.

Mutual respect and support are at the core of our laboratory culture. We appreciate that this is a direct result of the diverse experiences and backgrounds of our lab members. We will extend our outreach efforts to include raising the awareness of neuroscience opportunities for students from groups underrepresented in STEM. Including, but not limited to, recruiting scientists from underrepresented backgrounds at all position levels in our lab, where we will support their training in systems and computational neuroscience. We commit to acknowledging and overcoming our implicit biases, by educating ourselves, taking action in the academic and local community, and political action. We understand that these efforts are crucial to combatting racism and other forms of discrimination, including against gender identity and sexual orientation, systemic to scientific research.