IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - March 2020 - 159

FIGURE 1. The new Women Mentoring Women explanatory flyer launched in 2019. These efforts were led by Prof. Alina Zare and Dr. Heather
McNairn of the IEEE GRSS IDEA committee.

l-eadership skills. Check out the Twitter threads from our
very own IDEA committee member Dr. Nkeiruka N. Onyia (@NNkeiru), who attended last year and shared some
of her most inspiring moments.
Expanding our initiatives toward broader diversity and
inclusion, Zare is leading the effort to create and implement an IGARSS official code of conduct and a professional parents' space. Headway was made going into the 2019
IGARSS in Japan on the full code of conduct, and we hope
to have additional support for families of researchers put in
place for the 2020 IGARSS in Hawaii. Would a dedicated
child-care room at a top international scientific conference
empower you to move forward with your professional career? Would subsidized child-care options provide just the
opportunity you need to get ahead? Stay tuned!
Advancing intrasocietal diversity and inclusion, the
IDEA committee has joined with social media ambassadors, Young Professionals Program leads, and others in
reaching out, highlighting, and supporting the first ever
regional IGARSS conferences coming up in Tunisia, Chile,
and India this year. Women taking on roles in the local
organizing committees were highlighted in a recent IEEE
Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine column [2], and a
new microgrants initiative was launched to provide financial support for women and other underrepresented groups
from the local hosting country and neighboring countries
for each regional conference: the 2020 Latin American
GRSS/ISPRS Conference in Chile, 2020 Mediterranean and
Middle-East GARSS in Tunisia, and 2020 India GARSS. If
you haven't had a chance to submit to these conferences,
please still consider attending and supporting your fellow
GRSS colleagues and the remarkable efforts of the local

MARCH 2020

IEEE GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING MAGAZINE

organizing committees toward the Society-wide goal of "a
more inclusive GRSS" [3].
So, yes, we are moving forward to inspire, develop, empower, and advance all GRSS members with renewed efforts
toward an even broader vision
of diversity and inclusion.
This is still a work in progress;
WOULD A DEDICATED
we'd love to do it together and
CHILD-CARE ROOM AT A
can definitely use your help.
TOP INTERNATIONAL
If you are also interested in
celebrating, supporting, and
SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE
thriving on our differences for
EMPOWER YOU TO MOVE
the benefit of our members
FORWARD WITH YOUR
and the GRSS community, do
PROFESSIONAL CAREER?
let us know. For more information on these activities and
others, please contact Shawn
C. Kefauver (sckefauver@ieee.org), Keely Roth ( keely.roth@
ieee.org), or Mariko S. Burgin (mburgin@ieee.org).
REFERENCES

[1] K. Gibbs Jr., "Diversity in STEM: What it is and why it matters,"
2014. [Online]. Available: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/
voices/diversity-in-stem-what-it-is-and-why-it-matters/
[2] S. C. Kefauver, M. S. Burgin, L. M. Bruce, and K. Roth, "Women
taking on roles in summer and regional GRSS activities [Women
in GRSS]," IEEE Geosci. Remote Sens. Mag., vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 123-
128, 2019. doi: 10.1109/MGRS.2019.2931806.
[3] P. Gamba, "A more inclusive GRSS [President's Message]," IEEE
Geosci. Remote Sens. Mag., vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 5-102, 2019. doi:
10.1109/MGRS.2019.2894496.

GRS

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https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/diversity-in-stem-what-it-is-and-why-it-matters/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/diversity-in-stem-what-it-is-and-why-it-matters/

IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - March 2020

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