Closing the equity gap in plasma science

APS DPP stands poised to create a healthy climate of diversity, equity and inclusion critical to solving the challenges we face in our field. We acknowledge, as a community, that lack of an open and welcoming climate is a serious problem and inhibitor to achieving our collective goals. Established institutional practices, tropes, and policies have caused and propagated harm to marginalized members and potential members of our honored division. In this presentation, we describe efforts by the DPP Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Organizing Collective Committee (OCC) [1] over the last year to reduce equity gaps across the plasma community. The OCC is engaged in a three-pronged approach. First, we are developing a toolkit of evidence-based practices that are ready to be implemented by institutions in our community. Second, we are designing a queryable equity database of demographic and climate information for the DPP to evaluate and monitor equity gaps in the community, with strict safeguards to protect member privacy. Third, we are working towards a theory of practice that will jointly develop long-term community actions to eliminate equity gaps across the plasma community.