Maya Rossin-Slater Wins Faculty Women’s Forum Award
The awards honor individuals for their outstanding work supporting women at Stanford through role modeling, allyship, leadership and sponsorship.
Maya Rossin-Slater was presented with a Faculty Women's Forum award on Monday for her work to push for more diversity and her support of other women at Stanford through mentorship.
"It's a wonderful honor to be recognized by the Faculty Women's Forum and to be included among an inspiring group of faculty who support women at Stanford," said Rossin-Slater, a health economist and associate professor of medicine at Stanford Health Policy. "I am lucky to have had incredible mentors throughout my career so far — I wouldn't be where I am without them. I hope I can have even a small fraction of the impact that they have had on me on others; that's my way of paying it forward."
The Sponsorship Award is for faculty members who have consistently created opportunities for the academid advancement of women at Stanford.
Rossin-Slater advises multiple PhD students in both health policy and economics, is a co-chair of a new committee to ensure justice, equality, diversity and inclusivity at Stanford Health Policy and has led two annual mentorship conferences for women pursuing their PhDs in economics and related fields, in which women are in the gender minority.
She thanked several of her mentors during an awards' ceremony, including SHP's Michelle Mello, who nominated Rossin-Slater.
"Mentoring and sponsoring other women has been such an integral part of my career — and I always feel like I’m following in the footsteps of giants," she said.
"We need a diverse set of scholars, researchers, and policymakers to be able to make progress on the many issues facing our society today," said Rossin-Slater, a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic and Policy Research (SIEPR). "Academia is an environment that generates deep expertise on many complex issues, but its lack of diversity hinders that progress. And if we don't take action, if we are not intentional about it, then we will continue to be roadblocked by this lack of diverse voices. Mentoring is critical for making the academic environment more welcoming and more conducive to success, especially for groups that have been historically under-represented in academic circles, and this will ultimately benefit us all."
