Diversity Statement

*Please find the Diversity Statement in the sections below, as well as a number of photographs I have taken in Antarctica, South America, the Caribbean, China, and more places for your enjoyment.

Noticeably uncommonly are faculty who themselves are of underrepresented groups, from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, or even first-generation learners. I am a member of all of these groups and have had a non-traditional route to the professoriate. I am first-generation high school, undergraduate, Master’s, and PhD graduate. Thanks to fortitude, fortune, and the experiences that innately accompany this reality, I was both the only African-American researcher on the continent (Antarctica) at 29 and a pizza man a year prior. I have mentored first-generation Chinese students who have to deal with extremely high familial expectations; being the first and/or only. Improving their written and oral English skills, familiarity with scientific vernacular, and unfamiliar cultural norms outside of China led to positive outcomes for them. I am sure, in many cases, knowing me has made them more open and accepting; as I was the first person of African descent students ever met. I have mentored and taught White, Hispanic, and Black undergraduate students at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and the University of New Orleans (UNO, both are predominantly white institutions). In that time, my efforts improved students’ learning outcomes, provided letters of recommendation, as well as knowledge of Human Physiology, Biodiversity, and Statistics. I demonstrated that diversity in the professoriate is present and valuable. Here, in the southern USA, white students stated that I was their first African faculty. Despite their apprehension in voicing this to me, I received their compliment and thanked them. I have taught, and directed research involving minority, white, LGBTQ, and non-binary to name a few at a Historically Black College and/or University (HBCU, e.g.: Howard University). I provided a safe and welcoming environment for all to learn and thrive. I have assigned students working groups, with mixed demographics to promote collaboration, mutual respect, and communication. 

I have mentored a female undergraduate student from Howard University, of Bengali ancestry, who assisted me with ecological field work in Maldonado, Uruguay for a stable isotope study, a crucial component of my dissertation, and the processing of thousands of samples at the Centro Universitario Regional del Este (CURE) Institutes in Maldonado, Uruguay; alongside three additional ( two female and one male) white students from Georgetown University in Texas. I also had a male Jamaican international student at Howard University assist me in the completion of these same stable isotope analyses; using samples collected in Maldonado, Uruguay, and subsequently corresponding samples collected with the help of Chinese collaborators at Jiliang University within Xi Xi National Park in Hangzhou, at the National Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Institute’s OUSS/MCI stable isotope lab. By assisting with my research this international student earned a position as a research associate at the Smithsonian Institutes’ National Museum of Natural History, at 21 years old.

These experiences demonstrate my commitment to teaching and mentoring students and diversity; both abroad (in China for Auburn University and the University of Arizona and for Howard University students in Uruguay) and domestically (at The University of Alabama at Birmingham, The University of New Orleans, and Howard University) exposing them all to my research interests (trophic and chemical Ecology, stable isotope analysis and statistical modeling, as well as vertebrate and invertebrate Physiology and/or development, and evolutionary Biology). As I have developed expertise in cross-cultural communication, as an international faculty member for Auburn University and the University of Arizona, as well as international research collaboration, conducting my dissertation research in Uruguay, China, and Hawaii, with researchers at (1) Jiliang University and Xi Xi National Park in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China, (2) the C.U.R.E. Institutes in Maldonado, Uruguay, (3) the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, HI and within Kawainui Park of Oahu, (4) as well as the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) and the OUSS/MCI stable isotope lab. I have integrated my understanding of underrepresented populations and communities into research endeavors, engaging underrepresented communities and extending academically challenging scholastic opportunities.

I encourage students to be the author of your own story. "Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show,” this is the truth of a life well lived.  I want to motivate all students to show the world who they dream they are; and to make them cognizant of the validity of that dream dreamt. Diversity helps students pen their future.

Thank you for your time, consideration, and kind attention to this statement,

Dr. Kevin Emmanuel Scriber, II