The ADVANCE Program builds and sustains an inter-college network of professors who are world-class researchers and role models to support the community and advancement of women and minorities in academia.
In the College of Science, Dr. Kim Cobb is the ADVANCE professor and Georgia Power faculty scholar in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech. Her research uses corals and cave stalagmites to probe the mechanisms of past, present, and future climate change.
Cobb received her B.A. from Yale University in 1996 and her Ph.D. in oceanography from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in 2002. She spent two years at Caltech in the Department of Geological and Planetary Sciences before joining the faculty at Georgia Tech in 2004. Cobb has sailed on oceanographic cruises to the deep tropics and led caving expeditions to the rainforests of Borneo in support of her research.
She has received numerous awards for her research, most notably a NSF CAREER Award in 2007 and a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2008. Cobb is an editor for Geophysical Research Letters, sits on the international CLIVAR Pacific Panel, and serves on the advisory council for the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Leshner Institute for Public Engagement.
As a mother to four, she is a strong advocate for women in science. Cobb is also devoted to the clear and frequent communication of climate change to the public through speaking engagements and social media.
Overview of Institute's ADVANCE Program at Georgia Tech
Georgia Tech’s ADVANCE Program seeks to develop systemic and institutional approaches that increase the representation, full participation, and advancement of women and minorities in academic STEM careers—thus contributing to a more diverse workforce, locally and nationally.
From 2001 to 2007, our ADVANCE Program was one of nine institutions to receive an NSF Institutional Transformation award in the first cohort of awardees. Today, the ADVANCE Program is now institutionalized at Georgia Tech, and it extends across all six colleges by taking an integrated approach to the advancement of women faculty and minorities in academia.
Goals:
- Build and sustain an inter-college network of ADVANCE Program professors who are world-class researchers and role models to support the community and advancement of women faculty and minorities in academia.
- Initiate policy and structure toward equity and transparency in the reappointment, tenure, and promotion process through clarity of documents and practices, and awareness of bias in evaluation.
- Strengthen the scope and impact of productivity and livability practices for faculty at Georgia Tech.
- Create effective partnerships within and across colleges through liaisons with Deans and through the Equity, Diversity, and Excellence Initiative.
Key Initiatives:
- Equity, Diversity, and Excellence Initiative (EDEI) – Focuses on four areas—mentoring, transparency, bias awareness, and accountability—to help foster a diverse pool of talent, create an inclusive and equitable work climate, and support the career growth of existing faculty at all levels.
- Implicit Bias Workshops – Offers workshops for faculty focused on innate associations and perceptions of competence.
