“I hope that, someday, we will have as open a conversation about mental health as we do about a fever or a broken bone,” said Akhil Kallepalli, IEEE Photonics Society Associate Vice President of Young Professionals.
The challenges encountered by marginalized community members in STEM are unique, particularly in relation to mental health—those with diverse backgrounds are likely to encounter microaggressions, unconscious bias, and a lack of representation at some point, making career growth more difficult. Young professionals entering STEM may not be prepared to manage these challenges.
To foster wellbeing and in support of marginalized community members’ mental health, the IEEE Photonics Society Young Professionals Advisory Committee (YPAC) is partnering with the Society’s Diversity Oversight Committee and Dragonfly Mental Health (DMH). DMH is a nonprofit organization dedicated to cultivating excellent mental health practices worldwide and developing and making available a series of online sessions designed to serve individuals’ diverse needs.
The following training sessions will be conducted. See details on when these sessions are available.
Though these sessions have been designed with marginalized community members and young professionals in mind, all are welcome to participate in the series.
The sessions will be recorded and made available on demand. The first session, “Mental Health for Scientists: Challenges in Isolation,” is already available.
To join the next Mental Health Awareness session on 29 July 2021, hosted by the IEEE Photonics Society on the topic “Overcoming Imposter Syndrome,” register here.
To stay up to date on future sessions, please visit PhotonicsSociety.org.