Nabila Cruz joins the CDEG committee

by Trista Smith

We are delighted to introduce one of the new members of the CDEG committee, Nabila Cruz.

Nabila joined us in March and we are so pleased to be getting to know her, and to have the benefit of her knowledge and experience on the committee. We had a quick chat so the rest of the group can get to know her as well.

What is your current role?

I have 2 jobs at the moment: Research and Development Data Officer at King’s College London Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN) and also Part-time Library Supervisor at City, University of London. I am actually moving to a new position in King’s Social Sciences and Public Policy Faculty in June, when I start as Senior Faculty Research Officer and will continue working in research information management.

How did you get involved in equality, diversity and inclusion work?

A couple of years ago, I successfully applied to be a Gender Co-Champion at the IoPPN, representing professional services to try to advance pay parity and promotion opportunities for women. I then started attending the Athena Swam meetings in the faculty which opened my eyes to the immense amount of work still needed to achieve equality of opportunity for staff and to stop bullying and harassment. This made me even more passionate to achieve real change and I recently chaired meetings for a newly created Race Equality in Research in South East London network with fellow research managers to try to find solutions to underrepresentation of racialised people research, both as researchers and as participants in research. We still have a lot of work to do.

What made you decide to join the CDEG committee? What are you hoping to do as member of the committee?

I was looking for opportunities to get involved in EDI in libraries and enquired about the advert for the position Secretary. I quickly realised that with 2 jobs, it would be too much to take on but Karen was kind enough to invite me to join the committee, which I was excited to accept. I am keen to learn more about the work of the committee and help influence change in our profession so that we better serve the diverse communities we work in.

What do you get up to when you're not working?

Unfortunately not much at moment, apart from going for a run or trying to relax by bingeing any new series in Netflix. In pre-pandemic times, I would probably be at a museum or trying a new restaurant with my friends. In all honesty, I completely failed at finding a new hobby during lockdown and I am envious of anyone who did! (Editor's note: You are not the only one...)

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Welcome, Nabila!