Increasing Diversity in Fieldwork through Access Transparency

Haley Branch, Postdoctoral Fellow, Yale University. Dr. Haley Branch (postdoctoral fellow in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University) will lead us through an NSF proposal she wrote to help promote fieldwork inclusivity for disabled researchers. Many disabled students do not consider a career in EEB because of the dominance of and emphasis that the field places on fieldwork. Additionally, there is little information available about accessible fieldwork options. Haley plans to help the LTER Network build a database that will provide students and researchers with information regarding the accessibility of the different LTER locations. This will include information about the site itself, available lodging, laboratory set up (if any), etc. The first aim is to survey the locations for current accessibility and the second is to suggest potential opportunities where access could be increased at various application levels.