SPI Equity: Bypassing Bias
Published:
SPI Bypassing Bias
Our team has a new publication which is always a reason to celebrate. Today a paper was published in Astronomy and Geophyiscs lead by Angeline Burrell [1]. This paper outlines best practices on writing recomendation and nomination letters. It covers how to start and what types of details you may want to include, such as how you know the person you are recommending and why they may be a good fit for this specific call. Much of this is well traveled information. However, recomendation and nomination letters are often places where unconcious bias can seep in. The word choices we use when describing people we are recomending or nominating can set off unconcious biases for those reading the letters. This paper works to identify how to minimize this negative impact, and resources one can find and use. As we are coming to that time of year when many are applying for graduate schools, postdoc opprotunities, new jobs, and awards - consider taking a look at this article and using some of the resources suggested.