Inclusivity and Diversity

Diversity has implicit benefits. Put simply, the greater the mix of people in our group, the greater the mix of skills, experiences, perspectives, and ideas we can collectively draw on. These benefits cannot be fully achieved without creating an inclusive environment. Researchers produce their best work when feeling safe, secure, and supported.

All group members are thus dedicated to a harassment-free experience for everyone regardless of their gender identity/expression, 2SLGBTQIA+ status, racialization, ability status, religion, marital or family status, age, and/or identity as a First Nation, Metis or Inuit person. This includes:

• All communications in person or online should be appropriate for a professional audience and environment and should be considerate of people across cultural backgrounds. 

• Lead with empathy and kindness.

• Contribute in a constructive, positive manner.

• Be mindful of talking over others or monopolizing an audience. 

• Sexist, racist, or exclusionary jokes are never appropriate. 

• Harassment will not be tolerated. It is defined as unwanted attention and includes (not not limited to) offensive verbal comments related to identity, sexual images in public spaces, deliberate intimidation, stalking, unwanted photography or recording, sustained disruption of discussions, inappropriate physical contact, and unwelcome sexual attention. 

Violations of the code of conduct

To encourage students to feel safe reporting any violations to the code of conduct, this can be done by speaking with Dr. Ward or any of the BioWorks Group PIs (Aucoin, Euler, Liu). If your concern is related to the conduct of Dr. Ward or a BioWorks PI, contact your grad program manager of the associate chair of graduate studies from your department. These contact can be found on the departmental website. All concerns will be treated confidentially.

The code of conduct will be discussed with any lab members that violate the code regardless of their position within the group. If the inappropriate behaviour(s) persist, a formal process in line with Waterloo's work practice policies will be initiated. 

Mental and Physical Health

There is increasing evidence that academic research may challenge your mental health. We try to provide clarity to address the challenges relating to graduate studies or employment expectations and welcome questions on this aspect. Some specific issues include:

• Financial challenges

• Feelings of isolation in your research

• Uncertainty in research expectations

• Career uncertainty or progression

• Challenges related to "negative results"

• Burnout

If you feel like these or other issues are causing your undue stress, please let your supervisor know or reach out to campus support services. We encourage students to take a preemptive approach to maintaining your health. For this reason, we strongly encourage all students and employees to take full advantage of their time off which in the Department of Chemical Engineering is 2 weeks in addition to the closure during the Winter break and regular statutory holidays. We also recognize that students may be working at abnormal times due to experimental constraints and these students are encouraged to discuss time in lieu arrangements with their supervisor. Extended absences should be discussed in advance with your supervisor to ensure smooth operations. Permission for holidays is not required, but be mindful of deadlines and other obligations and make appropriate arrangements. It is important to take holidays to maintain a health work-life balance. 

Physical health challenges can be temporary or ongoing occupational health related challenges. The terms of your employment do not provide for official ‘sick day’ leave. Instead, it is understood that when you are ill or otherwise unwell, we respect your personal decision to take time to recover or for self-care. Campus Health services provide a range of supports. If you find that health challenges are having a significant and on-going impact on your scholarly activity, bring this issue to your supervisor to discuss possible options (such as transitioning to part-time activity, and/or accessing GSPA’s Medical Leave Award.

Working hours

Academic research can often be difficult to balance with other obligations. Typical working hours for lab work are between 7am - 7pm. The hours you chose to work are upto you, however, when working outside of these hours the lab "Working Alone" plan must be followed for safety reasons. Meetings and events however, should only be scheduled between 9-4pm Monday-Friday to facilitate an accessible and collabroative work environment that respects personal commitments and work-life balance. 

Lab Safety

The University and Department of Chemical Engineering have specific training requirements that all students must complete, however, all lab members must report any unsafe working conditions as they arise to ensure a safe workspace. It is our priority that all students and employees have access to the safety equipment that they need and these items can be requested from your supervisor. 

Authorship

Authorship on any manuscript should include anyone that significantlt contributed to the research. The types of contributions are outlines by all major journal publishers and author contributions should be outlined in the manuscript itself. All authors must confirm they consent to the manuscript submission and be informed at every stage of revision. 

Author order in the life sciences/biotechnology/biochemical engineering follows these conventions:

• First author is the research who conducted the majority of the work and/or lead the writing of the first draft of the manuscript. 

• Last author is the PI taking responsibility for the work and will be the corresponding author

• Authors in-between these positions should be ordered from greatest to least contribution

• Any issues relating to authorship should be discussed with your supervisor who will facilitate a discussion to resolve them 

Conferences

All PhD students are encouraged to attend at least one major international conference during their studies. If funds permit, students are encouraged to attend local or national meetings when possible. Lab members are encourage to apply for subsidies or travel grants to attend these events. Students are expected to present at conferences they attend with oral presentations being perferred to poster presentations. When preparing an abstract for submission, all co-authors should be included and informed of the submission at least one week beforehand. For oral presentations, lab meetings can be used for dry-runs and the meeting coordinator should be emailed to arrange this. 

Intellectual Property 

The CIGI has an massive open online course on the Foundations of IP Strategy that explains the fundamentals of what a patent and trade secrets are and how IP protects are different around the world. Students and employees are encouraged to take this course. The University of Waterloo has a creator owned IP policy (Policy 73). Some types of grants/funding might have an IP already committed and this will be discussed at the beginning of any project. 

This code of conduct horrows heavily from a number of existing CoC:  (i) BahlaiLab CoC (Christine Bahlai); (ii) WhitakerLab (Kirstie Whitaker); (iii) Hill Lab (Jon Hill); (iv) Krevorlab (Sam Krevor); (v) MicroMicEng (Ben Britton), (vi) UW MathBioLab (Brian Ingalls),