In October 2023 the DEI Working Group created this living document to provide a summary of action items suggested during book club calls. The living document is to be used as a reference to support and inspire activities for EFI that can be developed and led as individuals have time, availability, and interest in doing so. The living document also provides an opportunity to collate and celebrate activities that have taken place that have been inspired by or align with suggestions from the book clubs.
Recent Book Club – May 2024
In preparation for the EFI 2024 Conference in Helsinki, Finland, the DEI working group led a book club to read Stolen by Sámi author Ann-Helén Laestadius. While the novel is based in Sweden, it centers the Sámi people who live across Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. The group was excited to read this book, as it expands the book club in a few ways. This is the first novel the EFI book club has read. Much of the material that the DEI working group has focused on up to this point has had a United States bias and reading and discussing Stolen together provided the group with a contemporary view of cultural and environmental threats to an Indigenous group outside the U.S. If you have access to Netflix, the film adaptation of Stolen is now available as well.
Email info@ecoforecast.org if you are interested in joining the book club to receive further details and the Zoom information for the calls.
 | Stolen Stolen by Ann-Helén Laestadius | May 2024 |
 | 97 Things About Ethics Everyone in Data Science Should Know edited by Bill Franks | July-August 2023 |
 | Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy by Cathy O'Neil | June-July 2022 |
 | Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer Statement developed by the book club participants as a guide for considering data and forecast provenance. "Ecological forecasts, and the data that shape them, are a gift from the community. In this context, the community includes humans, animals, plants, and the land. Forecasts help us to shape decisions that impact our collective community or cultural values in a collaborative framework. We show gratitude for the gifts of ecological forecasts and data when we honor the reciprocal relationships among community members." | June-July 2021 |
 | Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson | December 2020-January 2021 |
 | Spatio-Temporal Statistics with R by Christopher K. Wikle, Andrew Zammit-Mangion, and Noel Cressie | August-November 2020 |
 | The Years That Matter Most: How College Makes or Breaks Us by Paul Tough Note: This book was originally published as "The Years That Matter Most" now it is "The Inequality Machine" | June-July 2020 |