DEI Officers: Fostering Diversity – Equity – Inclusion
The RIANA project has nominated two DEI officers (Diversity – Equity – Inclusion). If you have any questions, concerns, or comments, you can confidently contact them.
RIANA DEI Officers
Source: HZDR/Oliver Killig
Lakshmi Bhaskaran is based at Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) in Germany, where she serves as the Project Manager for the Horizon Europe project ReMade@ARI. She holds a PhD in Physics and has a research background in materials science and magnetism, with particular expertise in conducting experiments in high magnetic fields. During her active years as a scientist, Lakshmi also dedicated significant time to organizing events for the scientific community, including meetings, talks, conferences, and schools. Her passion for cross-stakeholder communication, conflict resolution, and collaboration has always driven her to engage with others, and she thrives in dynamic environments. Recently, Lakshmi transitioned from traditional academia to science management, reflecting her long-standing interest in serving the scientific community in new and impactful ways. Outside of her professional life, she enjoys engaging in cultural activities like Indian Classical and Bollywood dancing, creating art, reading, and exploring creative spaces and people!
Inka Manek-Hönninger holds a position as full professor at the University of Bordeaux in France where she teaches in the physics department and leads the Short-pulse Lasers: Applications and Materials (SLAM) group at the Center for Intense Lasers and Applications (CELIA). Her research focuses on ultrafast laser – matter interaction for micromachining, nanostructuring, and materials modification. She obtained her PhD in Physics from the University of Heidelberg, Germany, in 1999 and spent a year as post-doc at the University of Bordeaux 1 in France. Moreover, in the past she spent four years in German industry working on automotive components and fiber laser development. Today, as an executive board member and vice-president of the French Optical Society (SFO) she is participating in the parity commission and serving as a mentor and role model for young female physicists. Her passions apart ultrafast laser processing are outdoor activities, music, reading, cooking, and spending time with interesting people.
Source: private
RIANA is truly committed to fostering Diversity – Equity – Inclusion (DEI). These are not just buzzwords required for a successful proposal, but RIANA installs the position of a DEI officer who is elected by and reports to the RIANA Executive Board (EB). Let’s translate the RIANA proposal into action:
“With RIANA we have it in our hand to contribute to a change of mindset and reality for researchers to be not only at the forefront of their discipline but to act as role models in society.”
With DEI, we mean:
Diversity: mutual enrichment through differences
Equity: fairness to satisfy the needs of every individual
Inclusion: embracing everybody without imposing criteria whatsoever
Tasks of the DEI Officer
The tasks of the DEI officer include:
- Foster DEI within the RIANA consortium
- Support and survey appointments
- Act as contact person in case of conflicts with the coordinator, work-package leaders, supervisor, etc.
- Support reporting about DEI aspects
Beyond these aspects, the DEI officer largely acts self-responsibly and defines the tasks based on their own assessments of needs.
Ultimately, what action does RIANA take to foster diversity, equity, and inclusion? As individuals, RIANA members are committed to DEI by:
- Promoting equity pro-actively, e.g. in the hiring processes of RIANA scientists, in the selection process for decision-making committees (in particular the RIANA Executive Board, the RIANA Nano Strategy Board, the RIANA Junior Scientist Board, and the Senior Scientist Board), and inviting female researchers to share their experiences in the RIANA seminars.
- Making room and fostering breaks aiming for a safe atmosphere and respectful discourse, to listen to the opinions of those that remain too often unheard and not only to those that shout the loudest.
- Supporting individuality to match the needs of individuals beyond their nominal role within RIANA, be it to provide mentorship adapted to someone’s needs or to find creative solutions to combine job and family.
Such a mentoring approach – both for RI access providers and users – adapted to the needs of each individual fosters diversity, equity, and inclusion in a greater context. Beyond the individual level, RIANA commits to fostering DEI on the structural level:
- A dedicated Ethics Officer actively fosters DEI within the RIANA consortium and supports and surveys appointments. Administratively, the Ethics Officer is appointed by and reports to the Executive Board within Task 1.5 (Ethics).
- RIANA learns from other EU projects. Rather than reinventing the wheel by trying out new ways to foster DEI, we seek to rely on proven concepts; most networks and facilities within RIANA have task forces and regulations in place to foster DEI. As RIANA consortium, we closely collaborate with these task forces and implement their recommendations in practice.