NINDS Strategies for Enhancing the Diversity of Neuroscience Researchers

Michelle Jones-London,

Office of Programs to Enhance Neuroscience Workforce Diversity (OPEN), National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, NIH, Rockville, MD, USA

Neuroscience is one of the fastest growing fields and highlights the excitement about research, but it also demonstrates the impact that our large scientific community can make in prioritizing equity and inclusion throughout science. I discuss strategies at multiple systemic levels where opportunities and interventions could be implemented to enhance neuroscience workforce diversity.

I write this as an African American female neuroscientist who, sadly, has too many of her own #BlackintheIvory stories to tell. I choose to work in my purpose-driven federal career every day to make a difference by enhancing neuroscience workforce diversity at every level—and hopefully reducing the number of these stories and the collateral damage they represent. As a multidisciplinary science, neuroscience is one of the fastest-growing fields for PhDs. This exponential growth highlights the excitement about research but also demonstrates the impact that our large scientific community could make in prioritizing equity and inclusion throughout the biomedical sciences. In this moment, we are called to focus as a community and confront the structural racism that has existed for too many years. What will we do with this moment? Will we rise to the challenge to bring our collective attention to dismantling structural biases and racism in the neuroscience workforce?