JAX Genomic Education: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Our mission is bold: to discover precise genomic solutions for disease and empower the global biomedical community in the shared quest to improve human health.

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JAX Genomic Education: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

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We’re committing

The Genomic Education team at The Jackson Laboratory is committed to creating diverse and inclusive educational programs where all students, trainees, learners, staff and visitors feel valued and are empowered to participate in our mission to improve human health through genomics research, scientific resources and education. We believe human diversity is an essential ingredient for empowering the global biomedical community, and therefore our programs should reflect, embrace and celebrate the diversity of our world.

We recognize that diverse teams lead to novel and innovative problem solving (1, 2, 3) and that cognitive diversity improves recruitment, selection, and creation of more engaged teams with higher productivity (4, 5).

Now more than ever, we maintain our commitment, and have redoubled our efforts, to recruit a wide range of learners from a breadth of backgrounds, to reach wider audiences, and to further develop supportive and inclusive environments for our diverse learning communities.

We’re educating

JAX GE supports learning at all stages of education and training. Whether you are a teacher in our Teaching the Genome Generation program, a clinician staying current on advances in cancer genetics, or a doctoral student in our Cooperative PhD program, we strive to provide innovative training experiences.

We’re learning

Since 2015, JAX has more than doubled the amount of scholarship funds awarded to URM participants. Continuing efforts include enhancement of scholarship advertising, awareness building, and significant network building across HBCUs and minority-serving colleges and universities.
Teaching the Genome Generation ™ is a program for individual teachers that serves High Schools across the rural to urban and well-resourced to under-resourced spectra. TtGG enhances their genetics and genomics instruction through partnership with The Jackson Laboratory's Genomic Education department and the NIH Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA).
In 2018, we launched our Postbacc @JAX training program serving URM trainees planning careers as MD/PhDs in an effort to diversify the clinician pipeline.
In 2020 we launched workshops for trainees and mentor training for faculty to support individual development thereby fostering diversity and an inclusive research environment.
Every year, a diverse group of 48 undergraduate and high school students are chosen from all over the United States to participate in our Summer Student Program. They are able to meet and connect with research-focused students from different backgrounds who quickly form a community of motivated science scholars.
JAX GE recently translated popular MiniCourses into Spanish and Mandarin in an effort to reach more learners.
JAX GE's The Whole Scientist short course, an NIH-funded endeavor designed to support emerging leaders in biomedical research, includes sessions specifically targeting the self-awareness, communication, and leadership skills needed to be a collaborative scientist in today's diverse research environment.
We continue to engage peer institutions in conversations about best practices on diversity recruitment, including meetings with leadership of HHMI, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Marine Biological Laboratory, and senior faculty from Minority Serving Institutions who direct URM graduate programs (e.g., NIGMS IRACDA).
We reconceived our social media strategies to include the promotion of diversity in STEM. Follow us @JAX_Education and on LinkedIn.

We’re JAX GE

We develop creative, modern genetics and genomics educational opportunities for a variety of audiences including students, teachers, healthcare providers and researchers. Learn more about JAX GE and our team here.