Updates to iEMBER project: Gary McDowell moved to co-PI status on NSF award

Some participants of the iEMBER conference enjoying social time in Montana. Image by an iEMBER conference participant.

In 2016, while transitioning into my role at Future of Research, I had the honor of being a co-Principal Investigator on a National Science Foundation award to incubate a new Research Coordination Network, focused on developing a supportive environment to connect social scientists and biology education researchers looking to focus research efforts on creating and supporting inclusive educational practices.

That work led to the formation of the Inclusive Environments and Metrics in Biology Education and Research, or iEMBER Network. Before the pandemic began, our work focused around facilitating the formation of collaborative research projects at in-person meetings, both at our own conferences, and in workshops at other academic conferences.

We had our first in-person event in Montana in June 2022, and after an internal evaluation of our work and future goals, I have just been moved up to co-PI status on the National Science Foundation award “RCN-UBE: Inclusive Environments and Metrics in Biology Education and Research (iEMBER): Novel Networking Fostering Interdisciplinary Communities and New Research Collaborations”. My work has focused on Sustainability of the RCN, and my future work therefore involves figuring out what we do next, and how we do it.

We’ve had some clear successes - we have several projects that are progressing very well, that began at some of our events, and at our meeting in June we were able to get updates on the progress. In general, our events at setting up ideas for collaborative projects have been very successful - but what we are now focusing more attention on is sustaining those efforts. A number of great ideas have been formed, but the work has not continued, and while the pandemic certainly didn’t help, some projects (one I was involved with included!) didn’t move forward independently/prior to pandemic effects.

So I’m signing up to focus more on what is required to sustain research efforts, but also on what the Network membership wants and needs to continue in their work, as well as think more broadly on what happens to iEMBER on the conclusion of our grant.

It’s remarkable to think that a project that I was invited to join in late 2015, when I was still a postdoc, has grown into a network with engaged and passionate membership. But also, I was not part of the research disciplines being supported in the network when it began - whereas I am increasingly moving into the exciting world of discipline-based education research (DBER), no doubt in part because of all the interesting work I’ve been exposed to as a result of being part of this community. It has informed a lot of my work, and so I hope to be able to do my best in supporting the network in its future work.