Founded in 1958 as the anchor tenant of Research Triangle Park, RTI International began its fellows' Distinguished Lecture Series in 2015
Baxter at the start of her lecture for RTI International's Distinguished Lecture Series, held over Zoom on March 12, 2021. Photo: RTI International video
On March 12, 2021, Raven Baxter gave the year's first talk in the RTI Fellow Program's Distinguished Lecture Series at RTI International. The Zoom webinar was billed as "The Modern Lyrics of Leadership and Communication in Science."
Baxter once sat on a university diversity committee that spent several weeks studying line charts. The charts counted how many people of each ethnicity were in each department. She told the RTI audience what those charts left out.
"Numbers don't tell us the stories behind the people that represent those numbers," Baxter said.
The lecture came one year into the COVID-19 pandemic. The night before, President Joe Biden used a prime-time address to direct states to open vaccinations to all adults by May 1, CNN reported. A week earlier, the Pew Research Center reported that 61 percent of Black Americans planned to get a vaccine or already had. In November, 42 percent had planned to. Weeks later, Pew found that Black workers held 9 percent of jobs in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). They made up 11 percent of all employed adults, and their STEM share had not changed since 2016.
Belonging, Baxter argued, is "often left out of the equation" in diversity, equity and inclusion work. Without it, she said, an organization cannot keep the diversity it measures.
She asked attendees to define each term in the chat, then showed a diagram of three overlapping circles. Her slide defined equity as "constantly and consistently recognizing and redistributing power." Inclusion meant the "thoughts, ideas and perspectives of all individuals matter," and diversity meant "multiple identities represented in an organization." Where only two circles met, the slide named what goes wrong, from "homogeneous culture" to "culture assimilation" that "results in disengagement and low retention." Belonging sat in the center.
"Diversity, equity and inclusion really can't exist separately and independently from one another if your goal for your organization is to cultivate a sense of belonging," Baxter said.
Baxter's diagram placed belonging where equity, inclusion and diversity overlap. Image: RTI International video
Baxter said she felt she belonged as a student. Her time as a corporate scientist was different.
"When I started working as a corporate scientist, the culture was very much reversed, where I felt extremely isolated," she said. "I did not feel like I had a sense of belonging whatsoever. In fact, I actually had people verbally telling me that I did not belong."
She cited studies tying a low sense of belonging to lower research productivity and retention. For her doctoral research, she interviewed 20 Black women, half of them in STEM fields. She said "85 percent of all of the women felt like they couldn't be their authentic selves at work." The women likened it to "working a second job while they're at their job."
Baxter called creating belonging a personal responsibility. Learning to do it, she said, is "like a muscle that we have to work." In two exercises, attendees shared parts of their identity that others cannot see. Then they proposed ways to welcome Rex, a hypothetical new colleague who is a tyrannosaurus.
Baxter's slide on shared responsibility for belonging. Image: RTI International video
"Every day you should be asking yourself, am I showing up to work with the intention of truly creating a sense of belonging at work? Am I caring for the people around me?" Baxter said.
Asked in the Q&A how to reach science skeptics, she described a person online who did not trust the COVID-19 vaccine. She listened first. Then she told them how she became a scientist, and that as a drug discovery researcher she had thought about healing people.
"They said, 'I didn't realize scientists were people,'" Baxter said. The person had since been vaccinated, she added, though she called that no fix for every skeptic. "I think us showing our humanity really is a fundamental piece for us to close this gap between science and the public," she said.
Baxter answers a question during the Q&A as moderator Stephanie Eckman, an RTI Fellow, listens. Image: RTI International video
Asked what senior leaders can do, Baxter said leadership should reflect the country. She also spoke about raising culture problems with managers. "If your intention is to truly create a sense of belonging in your workplace, then I think it's good to get a little uncomfortable," she said. "It's good to ask the hard questions."
RTI was founded in 1958 by universities and government and business leaders "to retain local talent," according to its history page. It was the anchor tenant of North Carolina's Research Triangle Park. RTI calls its Fellows designation "the highest scientific honor and responsibility RTI bestows on its staff." The fellows' free lecture series began in spring 2015 with Blake Wilson, a former RTI researcher known for his role in inventing the cochlear implant. Later speakers included Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
RTI President and CEO Dr. Wayne Holden opened the webinar. RTI Fellow Stephanie Eckman introduced Baxter and moderated. The first Q&A entry she read was a note from an attendee who had come for ideas for an upcoming workshop and got them. "This has been the most interactive talk I've been doing in quite a while," Eckman said at the close.
Baxter, a molecular biologist known online as Raven the Science Maven, was then a doctoral candidate at the University at Buffalo. She later developed the curriculum and lesson content for Science of Immunity, a platform RTI created with the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA.
RTI's event page is archived, and its recording of the lecture and Q&A is on YouTube.
Dr. Raven Baxter gave Howard University's Wednesday biology seminar on October 25, 2023, comparing misinformation to genetic mutations and asking students about falling public trust in scientists.
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Dr. Raven Baxter emceed the opening day of the 12th annual International Space Station Research and Development Conference in Seattle on August 1, 2023.
