Our primary mission is to provide graduate training in molecular biology to outstanding students in an inclusive and supportive environment. We fervently believe that black lives matter and believe it’s important to promote an anti-racist culture within our program. We are committed to listening to the concerns of students and identifying ways we can create a community in which each person feels valued and heard.

Statistics on our applicant pool, our current student population and our Faculty are available in a number of places.  The MBIDP is part of Graduate Programs in Bioscience (GPB) and through GPB, the Next Generation Life Sciences Coalition. Members of the Coalition commit to collecting and publishing data on various aspects of their programs including demographics by gender, underrepresented minority status and citizenship.

Data on MBIDP enrollment, admissions, time-to-degree, and degree completion by demographics is also available at https://grad.ucla.edu/graduate-program-statistics/ (select Molecular Biology under the “Major” tab for each category). The number of students in the program from under-represented minority backgrounds (URM) has increased from 13% in 2014 to 31% in 2019.

The UCLA Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion publishes demographic data on students, staff and faculty, on its “BruinX Dashboards”.

A new MBI/MBIDP Diversity and Inclusion Committee, composed of MBI faculty, postdocs and students, will discuss and provide input on MBI and MB-IDP issues involving DEI. Some areas for discussion are mentor training for faculty, promoting diversity in recruitment and diverse representation in invited guest speakers.

We encourage all MBI faculty to take part in mentor training programs to promote inclusivity in their research groups. Two national organizations, Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research and the National Research Mentoring Network have developed a mentoring curriculum to support students and faculty at all stages of their career. The Graduate Programs in Bioscience offers an annual Advancing Faculty Mentoring Practices Workshop, which is based on the national curriculum. We are partnering with GPB to plan more frequent training workshops and to report faculty participation to graduate students choosing their rotation labs.

Academics for Black Survival and Wellness provides workshops run by Black academics to educate non-Black academics on anti-Black racism in America and Academia. We encourage our faculty to participate in these trainings and to discuss their implications for the UCLA environment.

Click here to view the MB-IDP Mentor Training Policy.