Equity in the Geoscience Industry: Strengthening Networks through Bias Awareness and Cross-Cultural Communication

The demographic composition of the geotechnical engineering and broader geoscience industry reflects an ongoing cultural shift toward workforce diversification. While diversification across sex, gender, race, ethnic, economic, and other cultural backgrounds is largely recognized as a beneficial force for increasing innovation, collaboration, and depth of experiential knowledge, these differences can also be potential sources of tension and do not necessarily reflect the concept of “equity”. The focus of this paper is to provide a case history and corresponding takeaways from the Lithos effort to develop our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion course throughout 2021. This paper will briefly identify a basis of need for exploring this topic, introduce working definitions to deepen understanding of concepts, identify bias and its impacts to decision making, and propose actions for both individuals and groups to implement practices that broaden inclusion within the industry. We hope to highlight how bringing awareness to our own cultural and unconscious biases contributes to a more dynamic workplace, and by extension, fosters a stronger and more inclusive geoscience industry.