# Diversity and Inclusion As an iGEM team, we think that diversity makes any project flourish. Different people bring different perspectives and open undiscovered horizons together. We strongly believe, that iGEM is not only about synbio. It is also about opportunities for everyone. Therefore, we would like to express our support for people of gender, racial, ethnic, sexual, and health minorities in iGEM and in general. It is crucial to create an inclusive environment for everyone, so every member of iGEM and society would have the conditions to reach their fullest potential! --- Statistics show that sexism in science still exists. Female scientists get more teaching tasks, fewer publications, and citations. Sometimes they face uncovered misogyny. A male scientist is a prevalent image of a scientist in our culture even though nowadays women make up the majority of researchers in many fields. The girls of iGEM LMSU team did not want to stay aside from this problem! This is why we organized iGEM FEM-Talk. During the sessions, we discussed important topics such as: - Open and hidden discrimination of women in science and how to confront it - Pregnancy and parenthood if you are a scientist - Harassment in educational and scientific settings - Representation of female scientists and public understanding - Lives of female scientists in different countries Girls from 6 iGEM teams from all around the world joined this online event! ![https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2021/5/52/T--LMSU---V7gSyMpm0s.jpg] --- In our team, we value the diversity of our teammates and we are proud to embrace it. We have 15 people in our team among which: - 5 identify as female - 10 identify as male - 2 identify as bisexual - 13 identify as heterosexual - 6 belong to ethnic minorities: Armenian, Jewish, Polish, Tatar, and Buryat - 2 have mental illnesses Moreover, our team members come from multifarious parts of Russia: Moscow, Krasnoyarsk, Kirov, Saint Petersburg, and Cheboksary. We are proud to have such diverse geography and represent so many places! --- We were happy to take part in the iGEM Concordia Montreal team’s challenge called “I Pledge Campaign” to express our strong position on supporting diversity and minorities in science and iGEM. ![https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2021/2/2a/T--LMSU--dMq2uqDK9Ks.jpg] ![https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2021/0/0f/T--LMSU--wvPrc7U2AFI.jpg] ![https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2021/6/6b/T--LMSU--2aOMicSvsZc.jpg] ![https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2021/4/43/T--LMSU--iQ_yvAydj90.jpg] ![https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2021/d/d8/T--LMSU--87OOh4jMkew.jpg]
Team:LMSU/Diversity
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Judging