Dr Bree Gorman is a diversity, equity and inclusion consultant, coach and trainer who works with universities and organisations across Australia.
Bree’s path into this work ran through the sciences. A year nine class about atoms turned into a decade in chemistry, and then to a decision when twenty-seven, after realising that continuing in academia meant three years of postdoctoral work overseas, that their family circumstances could not accommodate.
Moving into professional roles inside the university sector brought permanent employment and with it – parental leave, and it is a pattern Bree can now name precisely as the leaky pipeline. Eight years of research management, business development and commercialisation followed, and then a phone call about a gender equity role – examining why women leave science. Within three months of starting work on the Science in Australia Gender Equity (SAGE) Athena SWAN program, Bree knew they had found their place. They now run their own consultancy and host the podcast DEI Will Not Die.
Ricki Spencer and Bree discuss what lived experience contributes to this work and where it stops being enough on its own, and why asking a newly out trans employee to speak at a workplace morning tea can be an act of exposure rather than inclusion, however good the intention. They talk about what DEI is not, that it is not a people and culture strategy with a different name and it is not a calendar of breakfast events, and about what the work actually involves, from reviewing an organisation’s policies through to consultation, research, and action plans built with the people they affect rather than for them.