Expanding the Landscape of Opportunity: Professional Societies Support Early-Career Researchers Through Community Programming and Peer Coaching

Weaving the future of the field of comparative psychology is dependent on the career advancement of early-career scientists. Despite concerted efforts to increase diversity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, scholars from marginalized groups are disproportionately underrepresented in the field-especially at advanced career stages. New approaches to sponsorship, mentoring, and community building are necessary to retain talent from marginalized communities and to create a culture and a system where all individuals can thrive. We describe the unique and supportive role of senior women scientists united through a professional society in initiating peer coaching circles to facilitate the success of a diverse cohort of early-career women scientists. We offer our experiences with the Weaving the Future of Animal Behavior program as a case study that illustrates the cascading impacts of professional societies investing in the success and career development of marginalized scholars. We focus on our peer coaching circle experience and share the products and outcomes after 2 years of meeting. Peer coaching transformed us from a group of loosely organized, anxious individuals into a collective of empowered agents of change with an enhanced sense of belonging. We end by presenting recommendations to institutions seeking to expand the landscape of opportunities to other marginalized scholars.