Despite efforts to recruit and retain more women, a stark gender disparity remains within academic sciences. This persistent underrepresentation speaks to the importance of developing innovative diversity interventions and exploring their consequences. I first will present research testing theoretically grounded visual media interventions that aimed to increase awareness of gender bias in the sciences and promote positive action. I specifically will discuss evidence demonstrating that this video intervention increased awareness of bias and decreased sexism with participants from the general population and with academic scientists. I then will discuss some inadvertent negative consequences of trainings that increase awareness of bias. Finally, I will suggest possible solutions to this problem with the goal of further improving diversity interventions.

BIO | Evava (Eva) S. Pietri is an Assistant Professor at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. She received her Ph.D. in Social Psychology at the Ohio State University in 2013 and recently completed a postdoctoral position at Yale University in the Center for Scientific Teaching. Her research aims to develop interventions to help decrease detrimental biases and increase diversity in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) disciplines. For example, one line of research addresses negative beliefs about women in the sciences. Another explores the importance of role models’ race and gender for encouraging Black women’s interest in STEM.