What Can You Do?
...PhD supervisor
This section is primarily based on positive experiences that PhD students have had with supervisors.
Informal Check-Ins
You are likely to be the person with the most contact with a PhD student. Therefore, an unprompted email about their welfare can go a long way. For example, for prospective students, you could reach out beforehand to check in on how they are getting on ahead of their start date (especially if they are relocating). The additional contact fosters a relationship whereby students will feel more comfortable coming to you if they have a problem.
Talk about Social Etiquette
Another conversation to help students feel like they belong is talking about the social etiquette for conferences/summer schools. This chat could be particularly useful for first-gen students and insider knowledge can go a long way in making someone feel like they belong. For example, how the contributed talk sessions might work or what to wear. You could also tell them about any icebreakers or put them in touch with other PhD students who will be in attendance.
Possible pitfall: Similarity/Affinity bias
Supervisors might unconsciously favour the students that have more social interests in common with them, leading to more networking and job recommendations.
Reflections
These ideas seem like they would be good for any student, how might they be more significant to a student from an underrepresented group?
Making a Researcher
Make sure to talk to your student about what they want out of a PhD early on and allow them to change their mind by reviewing regularly. Do they want to stay in academia, move to industry, something else?
By knowing what they want, you can tailor your advice accordingly, so that you can be proactive in suggesting relevant conferences, thinking about people you could introduce them to and other recommendations for their career (acknowledging that their career goals may not align with your own).
Positive outcomes from these types of conversations:
As the supervisor, you can advise them about specific fellowships/opportunities and the timescale for these to reduce stress at the end of the PhD.
As we said previously, these conversations also allow for the student to see you as a person they can talk to should they have any issues during the PhD, such as money worries if they have a funding deadline.
If you can lay out the pathway to their next role, your student knows which tasks to prioritise for their own professional development. Earlier we discussed how women do a disproportionate amount of service work in academia, so learning when and how to say no to certain volunteering requests is a skill that is useful to develop early on.*
*There is a lot of value in postgraduate students from underrepresented genders attending undergraduate information events, and this should be recognised as a vital contribution and rewarded as such.
Reflections
Are there ways in which you can help your student(s) feel part of the mathematical community, both within your university and more broadly?