When Eric Nealy returned from a workshop with other Black scientists, his perspective changed. The experience gave him a new — and unfamiliar — sense of belonging.
“I was blown away,” said Nealy of the workshop, for life sciences graduate students from under-represented backgrounds. “In one single room I saw a wide variety of people doing science just like me, who also looked like me or came from a similar background.”
He shared the experience with his graduate advisor, cancer researcher and pediatric oncologist Jim Olson.
That conversation led to action.
After several years of planning, the Invent at Seattle Children’s Postdoctoral Scholars Program launched in June with Olson at its helm. The program aims to increase diversity in the biotech workforce and create a better scientific environment for Black and other individuals under-represented in the field.
The $45 million program trains scientists from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds, women, and people who identify as LGBTQ+ for careers in the biotech industry. The program will serve 50 postdocs and has already hired five, including Nealy, now a postdoctoral fellow in Olson’s lab at Seattle Children’s Research Institute.
“There is just an absolute absence of black and brown scientific leaders and it’s even more pronounced in biotech,” said Olson, also a co-founder of Seattle-area biotech companies Presage Biosciences, Blaze Bioscience and Link Immunotherapeutics.
A recent National Science Foundation report found that Black or African American individuals make up 12% of the U.S. population but earn only 6.6% of science and engineering doctoral degrees.
Though women now earn more than half of doctoral degrees in the biological sciences, they are under-represented in biotech leadership positions. Only 20% of biotech companies have women CEOs, according to a recent survey.
Other institutions have built stepping stones for under-represented scientists. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute supports a $1.5 billion program for faculty and another for graduate students, the Gilliam Fellowship, which sponsored the workshop Nealy attended. The STARS program supports STEM undergraduates at the University of Washington and elsewhere.
But there are only a few programs to increase diversity in postdoctoral programs, such as one launched in 2021 at Stanford. Invent stands out for combining academic training with preparation for industry, said Olson.
“This is kind of the capstone of my career,” said Olson. “We want to be a role model for other organizations.”
The program was built with the understanding that access instead of ability is often key to building a science career, said Nealy. Simply knowing someone in a research lab can help secure a coveted internship and open doors to highly-rated graduate programs. The career journey is also fraught with what Nealy calls “soft barriers.”
During Nealy’s freshman year at the University of California, Los Angeles, a professor proclaimed that minority students were unfairly admitted and not qualified, he said.
“I worked so hard in high school and my family and community were so excited that I got to college, but then I was immediately told by someone who was my senior, with all these accolades, that I was not supposed to be there,” said Nealy. Comments like that restrict people and erode self-esteem, said Nealy.
Nealy carried on, propelled by his drive to find treatments for cancer. His mother is a breast cancer survivor, and his father died of pancreatic cancer when Nealy was in college.
Nealy also joined the lab of a Black scientist, who provided undergraduate mentorship. “I needed to have that face-to-face exposure to this person who looked like me and was doing very well,” said Nealy.
“Los Angeles, where I’m from, is a pretty diverse city, but then you enter these spaces of higher education and then suddenly you are a lone fish in a gigantic ocean.” said Nealy. “And it’s very jarring, it’s like a culture shock.”
Many of his Black friends ended up switching to non-science majors.
Nealy, Olson and their colleagues started building the new program by listening. They queried dozens of graduate students from under-represented groups about their ideal postdoctoral experience.
“We completely trashed and rebuilt the admissions process three or four times until we came up with what we’re doing right now,” said Olson.
The application process does away with deadlines, since Ph.D.s are minted throughout the year. And it abandons lengthy written essays that disproportionately burden candidates from less well-known graduate programs, who often have to apply to multiple labs.
Candidates are instead asked about their curiosity and passions and how they would like their science to change the world. Nealy and his colleagues recruit applicants from the UW, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, as well as the Gilliam Fellowship and Black in Cancer, a group that provides mentorship and funding.
The aim is to identify applicants with ability and drive, instead of those who may have had access to the most prestigious schools, internships and research labs.
Trainees receive mentorship, classes in entrepreneurship and support for commercialization and spinout efforts. After three years in the program they are also eligible for transitional funding to their next role.
“We are getting high quality applicants,” said Olson.
The Invent program was launched after a time of turmoil at Seattle Children’s, in the wake of accusations of institutional racism by Black physician Ben Danielson, who was director of the Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic. Danielson’s resignation in 2021 was followed by a commissioned report citing failures in the institution’s handling of race.
Olson said he gives Danielson “enormous credit” for speaking up and that Children’s is changing its environment. The Invent program is one example.
The program is supported with a $12.5 million grant from Washington Research Foundation and its partners include the UW, Benaroya Research Institute, and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, which provide mentorship.
The Invent program also benefited from the early involvement of Seattle Children’s staff scientist Alison Williams, research technician Bianka Haro and others, said Nealy.
The effort is designed to inspire change in the long term. “My floor, which has the Invent scholars, has a much more diverse set of faces than probably the rest of Children’s,” said Nealy. “Ideally, we can expand.”
Editor’s note: GeekWire reporter Charlotte Schubert previously worked at Seattle Children’s Research Institute.
