EXCITES Kickoff Meeting Summary Report

Expanding academic Careers through Inclusive Transitions in Environmental Science (EXCITES) Planning Grant is a National Science Foundation supported project (#2325476) at the University of New Mexico aims to expand, foster, and embed support for diverse students in environmental science (broadly defined). EXCITES focuses on supporting scholars at two specific transitions when diverse student-scholars are at risk of leaving the field: moving from undergraduate to graduate studies, and from graduate studies to their long- term career in industry or academia. Towards this goal, we aim to increase capacity for culturally responsive mentorship and pedagogy that can foster and sustain emerging, diverse scholars through high impact strategies embedded in successful programming. One way we seek to do this is to develop a network of minority serving institutions (MSIs) in the Southwest region. We also aim to develop equitable and sustainable partnerships with professional partners (industry, governmental agencies, non-profits) to enable these scholars to engage in place-based research that addresses community-identified human-environmental needs. This report describes the content and discussion from the EXCITES Network Kickoff Meeting on March 21-22, 2024, which took place in-person at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, NM.