Mentorship and Inclusion, Together

Finding Purpose

A self-described “Third-World, blue-collar kid” and “first-gen everything,” Garcia migrated to the U.S. when he was 11 and grew up in Central Falls, the smallest and most densely populated city in Rhode Island. Throughout his school years, he worked several jobs to supplement his parents’ income. 

By high school, Garcia had set his sights on a career in the military, but teachers and guidance counselors envisioned something else for him: “They convinced me that I was capable of doing things that I, myself, did not think I was capable of doing.” In 1999, his senior year, he applied to the University of Rhode Island. He got in, and graduated in 2004 with a major in microbiology and a minor in chemistry. 

Then, after working for a year as a research associate at the biopharmaceutical giant Amgen, Garcia applied to Brown’s doctoral program in Molecular Pharmacology, Physiology and Biotechnology—again at the urging of a mentor. 

As he climbed the steps of Brown’s Biomedical Center for his interview, he told himself, “Enjoy it, because this is the first and last time you'll ever be here.”

To Garcia’s surprise, he was accepted, and in 2005, began working in the lab of his adviser, Wayne Bowen, professor emeritus of neuroscience. It didn’t take Garcia long to notice that he and Bowen, along with then-professor of medical science Andrew Campbell, were the only Black people in the program. Garcia soon took an active role in interviewing prospective graduate students, and before long, had helped to recruit two women of color to the program. Over time, he said, he became a source of support for more and more “students who were as lost as I was.”

Garcia, who is now assistant professor of orthopaedics (research) at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and one of the University’s first Dominican American faculty members, says “I found there was something incredibly fulfilling about being the person I wished I had had when I was at that stage. I found a passion, a flame, a purpose.” 

That sense of purpose has led him to mentor and advocate for hundreds of students—in the Diane N. Weiss Center for Orthopaedic Trauma Research, which he co-directs, in his medical school roles as assistant dean for diversity and director of the Center for Student Belonging, and as co-chair of the Department of Orthopaedics’ DEI Committee.

Exposure and Access

To this long list of titles Garcia recently added another: founder and director of the Department of Orthopaedics Research Summer Academy Leadership (DORSAL) program. Supported by a Rhode Island Foundation grant, DORSAL enables between 7 to 10 local, low-income high school students each year to explore the field of orthopedics through a fully funded internship. According to Garcia, it does much more.

“We cannot expect kids to come into a subspecialty like orthopedics if they have no clue it exists. The DORSAL program is intended to ensure that kids from these communities are not only exposed to orthopedics, but provided the networking opportunities, mentorship and the basic underpinnings of what it takes to be successful in college, in addition to being able to do real-world research with real-world P.I.s in a real-world environment,” he said.

Garcia noted that, like many of his mentees, the young people admitted to DORSAL tell him about challenges most students at an Ivy League institution never have to face, like food insecurity, feelings of inadequacy, or guilt over pursuing an education while their parents struggle to pay the bills—all of which he has experienced, too. 

“It’s not academic,” he said. “It takes walking that path to recognize and understand it.”

A Space to Thrive

As Garcia forged his path through academia, he had a powerful ally who shared his roots and understood his journey. Taveras’s interest in supporting students was largely sparked, she says, by accompanying Garcia on his path to becoming a scientist.

“When Dio was getting his Ph.D., I would visit him in the lab when he worked late and spent a lot of time around his peers and other grad students,” she said. “I started to see how different the journey at Brown was for him than it was for his colleagues. It really helped me to understand some of the gaps in higher education.” 

In 2020, Taveras joined Brown’s Initiative to Maximize Student Development (IMSD) as a program coordinator. With funding from the National Institutes of Health, IMSD has enhanced the academic skills and preparation of Ph.D. candidates from underrepresented backgrounds in doctoral programs throughout Brown’s Division of Biology and Medicine and School of Public Health for over a decade. 

During the two years she worked there, the turmoil of both the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement were throwing health disparities and social inequities into stark relief, including for IMSD students. “Working with those grad students showed me the difference I can make and the importance of the work,” Taveras said. “It fueled me to do more and better work in the DEI space.”

Today, Taveras is director of Brown’s Health Equity Scholars program, a selective scholarship and leadership-development initiative established in 2020 for students entering the School of Public Health’s Master of Public Health program. Like IMSD, the program takes aim at health inequities by fostering a more diverse public health workforce—one that includes perspectives as diverse as the populations it serves. Health Equity Scholars enter through one of three pathways: as graduates of Historically Black Colleges and Universities or Hispanic Serving Institutions, or as Rhode Islanders who want to serve their community. 

In addition to full tuition, the scholars receive leadership training, funding for research assistantships and practicums, networking opportunities, mentoring and coaching. “We take care of each student in an individualized way, celebrating who they are and what they bring,” Taveras said. “We create spaces where they can be their authentic selves.”

While their coursework is the same as other MPH students, Health Equity Scholars apply a health-equity lens to their studies, whatever their area of concentration.  

“We pack a lot into the two years to make sure these scholars have a full understanding of public health, whether it’s the Veteran, LGBTQIA, low-income, Black, Latino or other vulnerable community,” Taveras said. She stressed that diversifying STEM fields is essential to improving public health and health outcomes: “Representation and cultural awareness are important. When you’re working with someone who has a deep understanding of the community, you can build trust. It propels the work forward.” 

To date, the program has 31 graduates. They have gone on to work in pharmaceutical and health insurance companies, health-related nonprofits, and state and federal health agencies, including the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Others are pursuing medical, doctoral and nursing degrees. Three are practicing birthing doulas.

“It just goes to show that with the right support and scaffolding,” Taveras said, “students can thrive.”

A Team Effort

While the programs Garcia and Taveras run, and others like them, are thriving at Brown, DEI initiatives are under attack across the country, a result of the backlash against the racial justice efforts of recent years. Bills attempting to abolish DEI programs have been introduced or passed in half of America’s 50 states. 

Some conservative activists frame DEI efforts as tantamount to anti-white discrimination, but Rosey and Dio don’t see it as a question of skin color. Rather, said Garcia, it is a matter of the access these programs provide to those who might not have it otherwise. “We have to ensure that [educational and professional] pathways become clearer, less restrictive and as humanistic as possible,” he said. 

At home in Pawtucket, where Garcia and Taveras live with their two children, ages 7 and 13, along with three dogs, a cat and a yard full of fruit trees that Garcia loves to cultivate, the couple brainstorms and compares notes in what she describes as a “team effort” to enhance their work. “We try to be innovative in our approaches while learning from each other,” she said. “It’s nice that it’s collaborative, because it’s going to take a lot to shift the systems that are in place.” 

Indeed, while the student populations they work with are different, the goals they are working toward are the same: Build community, create a sense of belonging and share what they have learned on their own respective journeys.

“At the end of the day,” Garcia said, “what you're really looking for is somebody who feels like home.”