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The vision of 2030STEM is to address systemic barriers in institutional structures and funding mechanisms required to achieve full inclusion in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) and accelerate leadership pathways for individuals from underrepresented populations across STEM sectors. 2030STEM takes a systems-level approach to create a community of practice that affirms diverse cultural identities in STEM. Accelerated systemic change is needed to achieve parity and representation in the STEM workforce, and mentorship - due to its impact on retaining talent - is crucial to ensure those underrepresented in STEM feel that they belong and can thrive. To support the studies and careers of those underrepresented in STEM, we must increase access to mentors who have received adequate training on both the discipline of mentorship in addition to cross-cultural mentoring, use evidence-based mentorship tools to improve the outcomes of mentor/mentee relationships, and create a persistent culture of mentorship at the institutional versus individual level. This white paper provides a summary of research-based mentorship practices that have worked at improving the experience in STEM for underrepresented groups. This is the second in a series of white papers based on 2030STEM Salons that bring together innovative thinkers invested in creating a better STEM world for all. Our first salon focused on the power of social media campaigns like the #XinSTEM initiatives, to accelerate change towards inclusion and leadership by underrepresented communities in STEM. Read our first white paper entitled #Change: How Social Media is Accelerating STEM Inclusion for more information., Comment: 15 pages 1 figure. The second in a series of four papers from the 2030STEM collaboration

The vision of 2030STEM is to address systemic barriers in institutional structures and funding mechanisms required to achieve full inclusion in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) and accelerate leadership pathways for individuals from underrepresented populations across STEM sectors. 2030STEM takes a systems-level approach to create a community of practice that can test, learn and promote programs and policies that affirm and value cultural identities in STEM. To achieve parity and full representation in the STEM workforce, a variety of changes are needed across academia and STEM professional industries (e.g., business, finance, biotech, government) to accelerate underrepresented groups into positions of leadership throughout the STEM ecosystem. Through a series of subject matter interviews, roundtables, and curated analysis four major themes have surfaced, which, if implemented, could exponentially accelerate the creation of critical pathways to leadership, break down pre-existing barriers and biases, intentionally elevate the voices, value, and research of underrepresented groups in STEM, and implement new structural strategies at scale. This white paper provides a summary of innovative new practices designed to accelerate inclusion, including expanding on known global toolkits, new funding strategies, and the structural changes required throughout various STEM professions to propel pathways to leadership for underrepresented groups., Comment: 13 pages

Marine worms of the genus Odontosyllis (Syllidae, Annelida) are well known for spectacular bioluminescent courtship rituals. During the reproductive period, the benthic marine worms leave the ocean floor and swim to the surface to spawn, using bioluminescent light for mate attraction. The behavioural aspects of the courtship ritual have been extensively investigated but little is known about the origin and evolution of light production in Odontosyllis that may be a key factor shaping the natural history of the group. To investigate the speciation patterns and evolutionary history of Odontosyllis, we inferred phylogenies following a gene concatenation approach using both maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference with a multilocus molecular dataset including nuclear (18S rRNA) and mitochondrial markers (16S rRNA and cytochrome c oxidase subunit I) from 51 Odontosyllis specimens. We also used the resulting phylogenetic tree to perform an ancestral state reconstruction analysis to trace the origin of bioluminescence within the group. Our results reveal that the genus Odontosyllis as currently delineated is a paraphyletic group that needs to be taxonomically revised to reflect evolutionary relationships. Nevertheless, our analyses recover two supported clades with bioluminescent species and suggest that the most recent common ancestor of luminous syllids was not bioluminescent, providing evidence that bioluminescence has evolved independently twice in the group. We discuss possible scenarios for the origin and evolution of light production and the potential role of bioluminescence courtship as a driver of speciation. Our results shed light on the evolutionary history of luminous syllids and suggest that bioluminescence might represent a key factor shaping the evolution of these organisms.