If you’re new to the forum or just want to say hi, you can introduce yourself by replying to this topic! Sometimes it’s really nice to know that you’re not alone in the uphill push for equity. Feel free to include (or exclude!):
Bruno Sobral, Colorado, community ownership/health cultivation, CSU/ColoradoSPH/L’Ancla. Brazilian immigrant to USA seeking to contribute to and practice health cultivation in community.
Hi Bruno! I’m so excited to see you here. I was just thinking that literally, every conversation I’ve had with you is so useful and if we have them here I’ll be able to share them too! 
I’m always soooo thrilled and impacted by your work Heather! You and your work has changed my awareness and with new awareness change is possible! It is a privilege to be in relationship with you through any and all channels of communication! 
Hello from San Francisco, California, Everyone!
Heather, thank you for a FABULOUS workshop.
I am the director for the Resilient and Healthy Schools and Communities content area at WestEd. I also direct the Center to Improve Social and Emotional Learning and School Safety, which is working with three states on the way they use well-being data to advance equitable experiences and outcomes for their young people.
Hi there! I’m Edi and I’m the Data Coordinator for HCWC in San Marcos, TX. We serve all victims of abuse in our two county service area. I am in charge of managing all of our client data and grant reports.
Thank you so much, Heather, for such a wonderful workshop! It was eye opening and I feel better prepared for an upcoming conversation with leadership about our data.
Great to have you here Natalie! I’m glad you liked the workshop. Foundations is such a whirlwind and I always feel like I want to do 8 more hours right away to keep going… 
Hey Edi! So glad to have you here. I hope your conversation goes well, it always takes guts to put this stuff into work right away!
Hi all - I’m Rachel. From Colorado, but living/working in DC. I’m in the government working as an analyst, and spend a good amount of time working with a creative problem solving non-profit for youth called Future Problem Solving.
I’m interested in data equity as we collect and analyze financial data, but this also came at the right time as we have a new strategic plan, but not a lot of direction on the goal of “data-driven decision making.”
Hi Rachel! I know what you mean, it’s very easy to say “data driven decision making” but data isn’t a process that just happens by itself… it’s just human decision making using data, so figuring out some direction and some concrete what-does-that-actually-mean is super important!
Hi, I’m Shae Lynn Watt. I’m a data analyst for Mesa County Public Health in Western Colorado. I’m lucky to work in an environment that really prioritizes data, so I get to focus a lot on using data to forward the strategic goals of internal teams and partner organizations in the community. The material from the workshop was great for me, because a lot of the ideas were things I’d been pursuing sort of ad hoc and without a strong vocabulary to describe why they were necessary. I feel even more ready to do my work through a good science/equity lens.
Hi, I’m Alyssa - I work for a national citizen/volunteer science program - looking out how plant and animal life cycles events respond to weather and climate (www.usanpn.org). I loved the workshop last week - and can pretty readily see how the framework applies to collecting data on plants and (non-human) animals - but would love to hear from others working with ecological data.
Hi Alyssa! I am now FASCINATED by what you mean when you’re thinking about applying the Framework to plants! Certainly a lot of what makes equitable science also just makes for good science, but what kind of stuff are you thinking about? Like what’s an example for me (a total non-ecologist!) to think on?
Hey Shae Lynn! Glad you enjoyed it. My team and I keep trying to make it out to Colorado to meet all the many many great people working in data there, we talk to tons of people there. It feels like it’s almost an informal data-equity capital in the US… does it feel like that there?
Thanks I mean, I think it all comes down to the fact that we are people with worldviews interacting with plants. Maybe a good specific example is this map of spring arrival we run (Status of Spring | USA National Phenology Network) - it’s based on leaf out and bloom in lilacs and honeysuckles - but that’s just one definition of what spring is - what would it look like if we had engaged people from diverse cultures (and broader geographies) in defining spring and developing the map/index from there? I also think about the volunteers collecting data vs the academic researchers typically using it - we do have cases where volunteers ask the questions, but I think the norm is more data flowing to academia and then pubs coming out (that benefit researchers, and don’t necessarily get at the questions volunteers have). And we’ve engaged with Indigenous communities - which has taken us away from data and into relationship/responsibility, but there’s a lot to say there too… should we be serving data about tribal lands (eg satellite derived greenness) without conversation, relationship? Could talk about this all day!
This makes me think of the Indigenous Cuisinology episode of the Ologies podcast, where they talk a little bit about how we make plant dictionaries often based on the plant in bloom, but you might be harvesting when it’s not flowering and need to be able to see what it would look like in other seasons too.
I think individual by individual, there is a lot of awesome data-equity thinking happening. I also see it in the high-level strategic goals of many organizations and agencies, including my own.
Sometimes it feels like there is a disconnect between those two levels, though, where we can try to prioritize data equity, but then we’re stuck with an auditing system that requires a nurse or provider (at least to the best of their understanding) to categorize all participants who indicate that they are “Hispanic” as having a race of “American Indian/Alaskan Native” (that is a real example).
That said, I think that having the “head” and the “hands” on board is a leap forward from how this conversation has taken place in the past, and I nearly ALWAYS get great feedback when I point out how our systems are fundamentally limiting progress around data equity (which, because of the climate I work in, I usually frame from the “just plain good data science” perspective).
I’d be curious to hear what others from Colorado think, especially from the Denver side of the mountains where the political client is pretty different.
Hello! I’m Jane from Chicago, living in St. Louis. I have a background in evaluation and policy analysis, mainly in affordable housing and workforce development, and I’m trying to ramp up my work as an independent consultant in those areas. I’m also deeply involved in St. Louis Mutual Aid. I found the workshop to be extremely valuable and saw lots of ways to apply a data equity approach in all the various things I do. I’m looking forward to staying engaged!
These are such such good examples. I particularly like the “spring” definition issue, and the perfect illustration of totally different perspectives from lived experience on the ground to satellite images. What a powerful example of “whose definition is being centered”.
I love the Ologies podcast, one of my kids and I are always sending episodes to each other .