Evaluating the prevalence and quality of conference codes of conduct.

Efforts to increase inclusion in science face multiple barriers, including cultural and social behaviors in settings such as academic conferences. Conferences are beneficial, but the culture can promote inequities and power differentials that harm historically underrepresented groups. Science suffers when conference culture propagates exclusion and discrimination that leads to attrition of scientists. Codes of conduct represent a tool to shift conference culture to better support diverse scientists and clearly detail unacceptable behaviors. We examined the prevalence and content of codes of conduct at biology conferences in the United States and Canada. We highlight how codes of conduct address issues of sexual misconduct and identity-based discrimination. Surprisingly, only 24% of the 195 surveyed conferences had codes. Of the conferences with codes, 43% did not mention sexual misconduct and 17% did not mention identity-based discrimination. Further, 26% of these conferences failed to include a way to report violations of the code and 35% lacked consequences for misconduct. We found that larger and national conferences are more likely to have codes than smaller (P = 0.04) and international or regional (P = 0.03) conferences. Conferences that lack codes risk creating and perpetuating negative environments that make underrepresented groups feel unwelcome, or worse, actively cause harm. We recommend that conferences have codes that are easily accessible, explicitly address identity-based discrimination and sexual misconduct, provide channels for anonymous impartial reporting, and contain clear consequences. These efforts will improve inclusivity and reduce the loss of scientists who have been historically marginalized.

From chat rooms to classrooms and TikToks too: Dr. Brendesha Tynes' contributions to the study of race and development in digital contexts.

For more than a decade, Dr. Brendesha Tynes has been at the forefront of empirical research examining the role of race in youth experiences with technology. Tynes' expansive corpus of research highlights the psychological, academic, and socioemotional implications and impact of online racial discrimination on child and adolescent development, with a particular focus on Black youth. Using explicitly strengths-based frameworks in both her research and mentoring, Tynes' contributions to the fields of psychology and education are vast. Given the American Psychological Association's recent shift to intentionally and urgently address racism, Tynes' scholarship is more timely than ever. Using a narrative review approach, we trace the intellectual contributions that Tynes has made to psychology, specifically, and the study of race and racism more broadly throughout her career. Particularly, we highlight key conceptual, methodological, and empirical work that have influenced the study of race in psychology. We conclude by sharing implications and possibilities for Tynes' research to influence race-conscious practices in psychological research, clinical, and pedagogical spheres. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).