Archive for the 'black people in science' Category

When Worlds Collide IV: The Verdict is…

by
Clifford
on April 23, 2008
in black people in science, fun, minorities in science, science and society and science in the media
. 3 Comments

casino royale shootSo you’ll recall the shoot last year, right? Casino Royale theme? Where I got all dressed up in a Tuxedo at a club in New York that was kitted out as a Casino playing blackjack and so forth (click right) and getting very cosy with Ms Moneypenny? (Wait, that last bit didn’t happen.) Along with some actual stars, from entertainment, sport, fashion, etc? You don’t recall? Well, that’ll teach you not to use the blog’s archives more during your coffee breaks…

To recap (but please read properly about the background here), it was a photo spread with short bios for an annual piece called “Coming Kings” for a men’s magazine called “King”. I’d got the call out of the blue from them, and decided to do it since it’s an opportunity to do something a little different. To put some awareness of science and scientists in places where you normally don’t find much (if any) of it, rather than only targeting the more traditional crowds. It’s all about, as I said:
Continue reading ‘When Worlds Collide IV: The Verdict is…’

Haitch

by
Clifford
on February 24, 2008
in black people in science, minorities in science and science
. 5 Comments

There was a sweet, sweet moment during the afternoon Cosmology, Gravity, and Relativity session on Friday. (See here.) I don’t think I’ll be able to convey its full intensity to you, but I cannot let it go unmarked. The background comes from a personal place. In addition to my being, for many years, somewhat of a relative anomaly in being a black theoretical (high energy) physicist, there’s another component to that rare situation. My parentage is West Indian (or “Caribbean”, I might say, since in my experience the other term often does not register with many people from the USA), and until recently, I’ve not really known (m)any other such people in theoretical physics*. What struck me on Friday was a single syllable.

chanda prescod-weinsteinChanda Prescod-Weinstein (left), a graduate student at Waterloo/Perimeter, who has commented on this blog from time to time, and who I met for the first time on Thursday, was giving an excellent overview of her project to begin research on Doubly Special Relativity. Some of the motivating remarks involved simultaneously taking Newton’s constant, G and Planck’s constant \hbar to zero (the idea is that quantum gravity’s Planck length might remain finite in this limit, and thus remain in the physics as a new scale that breaks Lorentz invariance at Continue reading ‘Haitch’

DC Crossover

by
Clifford
on February 22, 2008
in academia, black people in science, minorities in science, personal and science
. 12 Comments

I find myself in Washington DC for two and a half days, attending an interesting conference. It’s the annual meeting of the National Society of Black Physicists* (NSBP), and I’ve been invited to give a talk (which I gave a few hours ago, entitled “The Dynamics of Flavour in Gauge/Gravity duals”, with a focus on what we can learn about experiments and observations of strongly interacting nuclear systems using string theory. Post about that here). I’m here for more just the talk, however. I also want to talk - in the sense of converse. Basically, it is of interest to me to get a feeling for what’s going on with the issues of underrepresented minorities (in this case, people of African descent) in Physics. As you know, the numbers are vanishingly small, and as you also know from reading my writings, I am very interested in this issue, and of course, how to make it not an issue, by helping more people find their way into the field and have as much opportunity to do well as the next person.

    nsbp banquet nsbp banquet

(Scene from the opening banquet on Thursday night. The featured speaker (no, not on stage in photo) was 2006 Physics Nobel Laureate, John C. Mather. Click for larger.)

It has been years since I came to one of these, and I must say it is a real pleasure to be here. There seems to be a lot of contrast to how I remember things from the Continue reading ‘DC Crossover’

Planck Meets Fleming

by
Clifford
on January 25, 2008
in black people in science, entertainment, film, fun, movies, science and society, science in drama and science in the media
. 11 Comments

So yesterday at Pinewood Studios they announced the name of the upcoming second James Bond film in the new series that (excellently, in my opinion) re-envisions the Bond movie universe. Last year’s first one was “Casino Royale”, you may recall. Did you hear what the next one will be called?

Continue reading ‘Planck Meets Fleming’

NSBP and NSHP

by
Clifford
on December 21, 2007
in black people in science, minorities in science, science, science and society and science education
. 2 Comments

nsbp and nshp conference logoI learned from Chanda Prescod-Weinstein* (an occasional commenter here) that it is time to register for the joint NSBP and NSHP (National Society of Black Physicists and National Society of Hispanic Physicists) conference. It’ll be in Washington DC, February 20th-24th. (Actually, it has been time to register, for some time, but I’m late to the party, as usual.)

Chanda’s been working on some of the organization, and she says on her blog (go there for more):

This year’s conference will feature a plenary on Cosmology and Quantum Gravity, organized by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein and starring Abhay Ashtekar (Penn State), Lenny Susskind (Stanford), and Meg Urry (Yale).

Continue reading ‘NSBP and NSHP’

Some of What Matters

by
Clifford
on October 4, 2007
in Los Angeles, academia, black people in science, environment, gardening, minorities in science, personal, science, science and society, science education, science in the media, women in science and work
. 9 Comments

Below I’ve reproduced the text of the approximately 20 minutes of that which I presented at the What Matters to Me and Why event on Wednesday. I mentioned my preparations for it in a previous post. The event was well attended, in an excellent setting (a hidden campus cafe I’d somehow not known about before, Ground Zero). There were students, faculty, staff, alumni, and several others. I chose to give a structured address to start so as to make sure that I did not go on for too long, as I might in a more off-the-cuff delivery. I very much wanted to leave plenty of time to interact with the audience through their observations and questions. I delivered it partly from memory and partly from reading, and wanted it to have a bit of a feel of being read a story, rather than a formal speech. I don’t know how successful that was, but it was fun for me. I think I might try that approach again some time.

[Update: - Audio of the event here.]

Overall, I think the event worked well, and I had a great time. A number of people (kindly) said at the end that they had a good time, and I hope everyone else did too!

___________________________________________________________________________________
Hello Everyone.

First let me say that it is an honour to be here. I’d like to thank everyone concerned for inviting me to speak in this series. I imagine that everyone starts their piece by saying that they struggled to find a way of saying What Matters to them and Why in a short time. So I won’t dwell on that, except to say that it’s especially hard when, the day before preparing, you realize that it’s not going to be that hour long presentation you were expecting to squeeze your essence into, but 20 minutes!

Some time ago, when people started mentioning that they’d seen that I was a guest in this event, and that they were looking forward to hearing what I will say (!), I’d respond that I too was curious about what I was going to say, and would also try to show up and find out. This was actually true. The other thing that I (half-)joked was Continue reading ‘Some of What Matters’

What Matters?

by
Clifford
on October 2, 2007
in Los Angeles, academia, black people in science, environment, film, gardening, minorities in science, miscellany, movies, nature, personal, science, science and society, science education, science in drama, science in the media, television and women in science
. 6 Comments

palm flower frondsI’ll let you know.

Huh? Today, I’ve to think about two things I have to talk about over the next couple of days. I’ve to give a physics seminar on Thursday at UCSB, but more urgently, I have to think about What Matters To Me and Why. Why? This is because in the Spring I agreed to be one of the presenters of the four-times-a-semester USC event of the same title, hosted by the Center for Religious Life. This excellent series is run by Rabbi Susan Laemmle, the Dean of Religious Life, with a committee of students. Here’s how it is supposed to work (extract from their site):

At each WMMW session, the featured guest spends about twenty minutes addressing the topic “What Matters to Me and Why,” and then the floor is opened to informal dialogue for the remainder of the hour. Just as there is no one way to address the topic, so there will be no one direction in which dialogue will proceed. The student contact from the WMMW committee introduces the speaker and makes sure that the session goes forward in a professional yet friendly manner. An indirect purpose of WMMW is to maintain an arena in which people can talk about important, personally charged questions in an open, mutually respectful way.

A typical session is described here. This is going to be a tough one. Not because nothing matters to me but because everything seems to matter, and I cannot effectively rank these things to say what matters most in any way. I only learned yesterday that I only have about 20 minutes to say what it is that matters. This either makes things harder or easier, I can’t decide yet. Probably harder. Now I really have to think.

I jokingly thought a few months ago that I ought to just look at my last few blog posts the day before and just talk about what’s in those. What can I see… Well, there’s public transport, community and the environment, composting and gardening, science and television (and scientific honesty). Not bad. (Good thing I did not do that post on dating. Probably not a good topic for WMMW…) I can probably weave something out of those. Do I blog about those things by accident, or because there are some themes there that are being brought out? What are the big themes in those then? Random scattered thoughts follow….
Continue reading ‘What Matters?’

Home School

by
Clifford
on September 16, 2007
in black people in science, minorities in science, radio, science and society, science education and women in science
. 27 Comments

simpsons schoolThis is very interesting to me. I just heard a story (by Nancy Mullane) on NPR’s Weekend Edition about home schooling. (The link is here, and audio will be available at that page shortly). It focuses on the issue that African Americans are the fastest growing group of adopters among minorities in the US. I was also not aware that homeschooling is on a rapid rise.

This raises all sorts of questions for me. Very basic ones. How well does homeschooling work? Does the “product” - an educated person - perform well afterwards, once they’ve rejoined educational settings with the more traditional social environments (colleges and universities). Does the reduced level of social interaction during those homeschooling years have an adverse effect, or is it compensated for by social interaction that presumably takes place after school? Perhaps there are arguments that the reduction in social interaction even helps in some ways? I really don’t know much about this. Do you? I presume there’s all sorts of statistics on this, but I’d be curious to hear a bit of anecdotal discussion in the comments. Perhaps you were homeschooled? Have friends who were? Are homeschooling someone now? Are being homeschooled now? Tell us what you think!

I wonder about this since I’m curious as to whether this results in a different (better, Continue reading ‘Home School’

Good Luck Brittney Exline!

by
Clifford
on September 3, 2007
in black people in science, minorities in science, science and society and women in science
. 8 Comments

Just spotted this AP article (by Kathy Matheson) about Brittney Exline:

brittney exline[…] at the age of just 15 she is beginning her Ivy League career Wednesday when classes start at the University of Pennsylvania.

Which is very good indeed, but I was especially pleased to see:

She excels at math and science and is really interested in politics, so she enrolled in a Penn program that will award her degrees from both the engineering and liberal arts schools when she graduates in 2011.

Hurrah!

Have a look at the AP story for quotes, information about her background, other Continue reading ‘Good Luck Brittney Exline!’

Still So Far To Go

by
Clifford
on August 29, 2007
in academia, black people in science, minorities in science and women in science
. 116 Comments

Sometimes one deludes oneself into thinking that progress has been made on some important social issue, and then out of the blue, there’s a reminder of just how far things still have to go. Check out this post - supposedly a report on the contents of a physics seminar given by a woman - on the blog “A Quantum Diaries Survivor”, and get a reminder of what women in physics are up against. Near the beginning of the post he spends one of the longest paragraphs of the piece talking about how her hair was done, how fit and attractive he thinks she looks, wondering whether she works out…(!) It’s so completely awful to do this sort of thing and he does it so spectacularly completely that I actually thought it was meant to be a parody of some sort! From his comments in response to people pointing out the inappropriateness of it, it turns out that he really does not get it at all. Not a bit.

It is really sad. It is so embarrassing too, when anyone female shows up in a physics context and guys just start behaving like they’ve never seen a woman before. That silliness alone is simply embarrassing, but this is quite a bit worse I would say, since it is damaging to the cause of women in the field.

I really shouldn’t go on, and I will risk sounding preachy and self-righteous (and I’ll just get yelled at and nobody will learn anything) but it’s important, so I will try some words:

Of course there are contexts in which we can discuss things about each other that take note of (even celebrate) our differences in gender, race, and so forth. I’ll be so bold Continue reading ‘Still So Far To Go’

When Worlds Collide, III

by
Clifford
on April 27, 2007
in black people in science, fun, science and society and science in the media
. 12 Comments

Well, the cat’s out of the bag. Since Tuesday, in fact. What am I talking about? I’m going to get so beaten up in the playground for this…

casino royaleWell, I did a post a while ago about a trip I did to New York to take part in a day long shoot for a magazine, all dressed up in my tuxedo on a “Casino Royale” themed set. You can read about it in full here. What was the point? Reaching out. More science in the public domain, and on the lips of the regular person on the street. The usual things you know (from my writing here and elsewhere) that I’m passionate about. The readership of the magazine in question is not commonly exposed to images of scientists. The world of science and practicing scientists hardly intersects with the world of R&B, hip-hop, sports, fashion, the primary foci of this magazine and many others. I see no reason why not, but those who work in the media that control most of the images we see think otherwise.

Except for some creative people at King magazine. King magazine is a men’s magazine aimed primarily at young African Americans. (See a Wikipedia summary here, and the magazine website here. Warning! This is a men’s magazine aimed at a very specific demographic/readership, and while it does not warrant being on those shelves in the store that are behind the black glass, it is decorated from cover to interior in a manner that is… shall we say “somewhat differently” from the magazines I usually point to, such as SEED, National Geographic, or Scientific American! Ok?)

Every year, King magazine does a feature shoot of a group of people making interesting noises in their respective fields, people that you’ve either heard from (if you’re into those fields, and sometimes even not) or that they expect you’ll hear from soon. It’s all glossy and fun and so forth, and they decided (to my lasting surprise) to call me and ask if I’d take part. Hence the New York trip. The magazine is out on the stands now (June edition), and you can go and look at it.

I took the liberty of making some scans of the pictures for you (I hope the magazine’s staff don’t mind!), since I’d teased you so much in the last post with some of the shots I took, but could not reveal details about who was in the group, etc. There’s more in the actual magazine, such as quotes from the subjects about their work, life, etc.

So here goes:

Continue reading ‘When Worlds Collide, III’

Candace Partridge: Women in Physics at USC

by
Clifford
on March 14, 2007
in black people in science, minorities in science, science and society and women in science
. 8 Comments

Rather than just sit around and wring our hands about the severe underrepresentation of women and minorities in science and engineering, it’s worth getting out there and trying to do things to help make a change. Here at Asymptotia, I describe things of that nature from time to time. At other times, I like to just shut up and listen, since (for example) it is also important to hear about the opinions and experiences of a range of different people who are trying to make their way in some aspect of these fields.

candace partridgeToday we have a guest post from Asymptotia regular commenter Candace Partridge (clickable image on right). Candace is doing an undergraduate degree in Physics at the University of London (Birkbeck College), having come to study the subject at this level rather later than is traditional, and having studied other subjects, and worked professionally in another career. This gives her an unusual perspective, and one that is of considerable value. Candace attended the Women in Physics conference that was held at USC in January, and of which I spoke earlier. She tells us a bit about it below, along with some thoughts about her own path in Physics. There is some overlap with an article she wrote for Inkling, but Candace has expanded on several aspects for her post here.

-cvj

___________________________________________________________________________________

candace tripAhhh…what’s better than a trip to LA? How about a travel grant to get to LA to attend the 2nd annual Undergraduate Women in Physics conference held at USC? Most students view MLK Day as a sort of bonus extension the to holidays, a way to ease back into the usual routine. However, for 50-odd physics students, this long weekend was a chance to make the journey to USC to meet other female (and a few male) physics students.

Of course, where I’m now from (London), we don’t get MLK day off. In fact, I was only on native soil because I had cleverly timed a three-week trip to visit my parents in Mississippi to coincide with this conference. After all, once I’ve flown 5000 miles, what’s a couple of thousand more? No problem! I landed in LAX to bright and sunny weather but with a cold wind blowing out of the north, heralding the arrival of that cold wave that destroyed the citrus crops and brought snow flurries to Malibu. It was far colder in LA than in London that weekend.

candace tripThis was my first trip to a physics-related conference, and I was a wee bit out of the target demographic. See, I am still a lowly undergrad — I say ’still’ because here I am a woman pushing thirty who is barely halfway through her BSc as opposed to the young striplings a full decade younger than myself. Also, I was the only attendee from overseas…kind of. But I am happy to mix with people of all sorts, especially other women like me who are studying physics because, let’s face it, some of us are still feeling a little alone over here.

So I’m a female mature student, which in undergrad physics makes me a bit of an Continue reading ‘Candace Partridge: Women in Physics at USC’

When Worlds Collide, II

by
Clifford
on March 9, 2007
in academia, black people in science, fun, minorities in science, personal, science, science and society, science in the media and travel
. 14 Comments

I think I ought to explain, as promised, why I am in New York. The first thing to mention is that I wrote the previous post in this miniseries (it was written on a flight to Dublin, and finally posted when I returned) before I knew about any of what I’m about to tell you, so it is rather funny to me…

casino royale shoot

The week that I returned from Dublin I noticed a phone message from an editor of a magazine asking me to return their call. A couple of days later I learned what it was about. It’s a magazine that largely focuses on buzz about people and projects in the entertainment and fashion industry - Music (R&B, Hip Hop mostly), Movies and TV, etc., as far as I can tell, along with some coverage of parts of the business world. Its readership is mostly younger African American males, I think. As far as I can tell, the intention is not to be about those things in particular, but it is largely reflecting the interests of the readership it is targeted at. It’s a major product, jumping out at you immediately when you are in the magazine store (the striking picture of a woman on the front helps it grab your attention, of course).

Each year, the magazine does a special issue featuring a group of individuals who are doing “major things” in the industries I mentioned above. It is a combination of a focus on new talent that’s about to become more widely known, or just bringing to readers’ attention the existence of some of the people who are making significant impact in what they’re doing.

Somehow - I do not know how - they got my name. It turns out that they spent some time reading some of things I’ve written here at Asymptotia too. Now normally, you’d expect things to stop at that point, but in fact it did not. They decided to broaden things out a bit and include me (if I was willing) in this year’s feature issue.

I thought about it for a day. It is quite an honour to be approached, and I’m also impressed that the magazine’s editors are being creative in this way (it would be easy Continue reading ‘When Worlds Collide, II’

Show and Tell

by
Clifford
on February 27, 2007
in academia, black people in science, minorities in science and science
. 6 Comments

Well, it is almost the last day of Black History Month and I am behind on answering the traditional emails I receive at this time of year. As I said last year (with a few modifications):

clifford v. johnson at the board Pretty soon after February starts, the deluge of email I get every day gets enhanced a bit by emails from students from all over America. I become part of an assignment, you see. It seems that these students are instructed to find a black scientist and write something about them and do a presentation to their class about them1.

I’m always willing to help with this sort of thing (see the footnote for why), and so I usually send some links: to my personal webpage (here), or one of two profile pages for me at USC here and here (the latter by Katherine Yungmee Kim), a Daily Trojan news story by Diya Chacko here, or the departmental page on me (here), and a list of publications, and I hope that this is all of some use.

As to the standard “what is your date of birth?” question that is usually asked too, I don’t pass out that information over the web, but if you’re an interested student, you can email me for a bit more information if you wish, although I will not give out the exact date.

For a bit of biographical narrative, students can look on the “My Hero Project” Continue reading ‘Show and Tell’

What Inspired You?

by
Clifford
on January 22, 2007
in black people in science, fun, minorities in science, science and society and women in science
. 26 Comments

It’s always interesting to hear from others about what set them on the path they’re on, no matter what career path that is. I just read Chanda’s guest post on the matter over at Backreaction. Chanda is a theoretical physicist in training, and so from my point of view it is interesting to hear about her choices since I chose the same career myself.

Since I’m also keen that talented women and people of colour can learn that they can choose to do science careers, and hope that it continues to become increasingly likely that they make their way in such careers with the same opportunities as everyone else, it was also interesting -and encouraging- to read her thoughts (since she is in both categories). Have a look at her post yourself, and also her post on Cosmic Variance about some of those issues.

Whether or not you read it, don’t hesitate to share with us your own recollections. What Continue reading ‘What Inspired You?’

Video Physics

by
Clifford
on January 17, 2007
in academia, black people in science, books and science
. 10 Comments

An American Physics Student in England has a nice post about physics resources online in the form of video. In addition to the resource list provided by Serkan Cabi, which he discusses, he provides some favourites of his own. Check out his list.

I am pleased to see the ASTI website on his list. ASTI was designed (by yours truly) as a means of giving access to science to those who were less able to have such opportunities (I focused on Africa and got - with the help of Robert de Mello Koch, Jeff Murugan and Amanda Weltman - several students from as many as 11 different African countries to attend - I hope to do it again in various fields of science at a variety of levels, if I can find a financial donor or donorsa) and I hoped that by videoing everything and putting it on a site that the school’s lectures could serve people all over the world for a long time to come. So it is nice to hear about someone using it. (I’ve heard that there are some links with problems on that site, so I will try to get them fixed.)

By the way, in another excellent post a few weeks ago, the same blogger chatted about several physics textbooks and other resources that give an introduction to quantum field theory. Go over there and compare notes, or get ideas if you are looking for a way into that important subject.

Finally, I’ve also noted a number of mentions of Durham on that same blog. One of them was apparently inspired by an earlier post of mine, and was in fact a sort of Continue reading ‘Video Physics’

Women in Science - What to Do Next?

by
Clifford
on December 19, 2006
in Los Angeles, academia, black people in science, science and society and women in science
. 42 Comments

Cornelia Dean has written a very interesting article for the New York Times about the things people are doing to change the current situation concerning the underrepresentation of Women in Science in academia. It continues on from the discussion we were having after the September release of the report by the National Academy of Science on the issue.

The key point under discussion? From the article:

Since the 1970s, women have surged into science and engineering classes in larger and larger numbers, even at top-tier institutions like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where half the undergraduate science majors and more than a third of the engineering students are women. Half of the nation’s medical students are women, and for decades the numbers have been rising similarly in disciplines like biology and mathematics.

However…

Yet studies show that women in science still routinely receive less research support than their male colleagues, and they have not reached the top academic ranks in numbers anything like their growing presence would suggest.

In fact, it is only in the social, behavioral or life sciences that the proportion of women full professors has risen into double digits - 15 percent or so. Something goes wrong. What is it?

at each step on the academic ladder, more women than men leave science and engineering.

The current article reports on a number of gatherings on various campuses - conferences organised to network, share, and brainstorm a bit on the issue. There are interviews with several people, and experiences and anecdotes are shared. Very much worth your time to read. Discussed are a wide range of topics, the most central being that it is still the case that women are judged by different standards than men. Even though often times it might seem to be something as simple as what to wear to a meeting - it makes a difference. These things all add up. Other things mentioned are the two-body problem, mentoring, letters of recommendation, children and motherhood, and negotiating skills, among others.

I’ll let you read the article, but do come back and let us know what you think. We’ve been through a lot of this discussion before, so one aspect I’d like to hear about is the following: What are you doing about the issue in your own sphere of influence? Are Continue reading ‘Women in Science - What to Do Next?’

Those Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

by
Clifford
on October 20, 2006
in academia, black people in science, mathematics, minorities in science, science and women in science
. 13 Comments

You may recall that we were recently discussing stereotypes as a result of an earlier post. Particularly, I was talking about the effects those sterotypes can produce as a result of modifying the expectations of others, making it hard for some people to be taken seriously, and resulting in them having to go that extra mile (or several) as a result.

Well, I’d like to point your attention to a recent study about the direct effects of those stereotypes on the stereotyped. Quoting from an article by AP science writer Randolph E. Schmid:

[Steven J.] Heine and doctoral student Ilan Dar-Nimrod wanted to see how people are affected by stereotypes about themselves. They divided more than 220 women into four groups and administered math and reading comprehension tests between 2003 and 2006. Their results are reported in Friday’s issue of the journal Science.

What they actually did was to provide the different groups with different images and reading materials before they did the tests. They seem to have found significant differences in the results that suggest that having a negative stereotype of yourself in mind actually makes things worse. In other words:

It’s a process psychologists call a stereotype threat, Heine explained. “If a member of a group for which there is a negative stereotype is in a position to test the stereotype, they are likely to choke under the pressure.”

So reminding them of the stereotype affects them.

Here’s what they found:

Continue reading ‘Those Self-Fulfilling Prophecies’

The Yankovic Singularity

by
Clifford
on October 16, 2006
in black people in science, humour, music and science and society
. 27 Comments

So I actually had no idea that Weird Al Yankovic was still doing his, er, particular brand of music. (Singular, one might say.) I actually thought it stopped a long while ago, not long after the Thriller parodies. Well, not long ago he did a video/song called “White and Nerdy”. I looked at it*, and so can you, on Myspace video (wow, I had no idea they had a video service). Here is the link.

weird Al white and nerdy video

Among the things featured in the video’s visuals are Schrodinger’s equation, Stephen Hawking’s BHOT, M C Escher (It’s a rap video, so…) Here are some stills (click for larger):

weird Al white and nerdy videoweird Al white and nerdy videoweird Al white and nerdy video

I laughed, I’ll admit. I find his fresh-faced and cheerful style quite funny at times. But then I got thinking. I can’t decide whether I should be depressed at the potency of the stereotypes he is playing with, or just carry on giggling. For example, why did the guys who were representing the complete opposite of being nerdy (and into science, reading, and the like) have to be cast as black? Worse than that (or at least equally as Continue reading ‘The Yankovic Singularity’

On The Potential of Women Scientists and Engineers in Academia

by
Clifford
on September 18, 2006
in academia, black people in science, minorities in science and women in science
. 48 Comments

Today, the National Academies released their long awaited report on the potential of women scientists and engineers in academia. The title is “Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering”, and it can be obtained here. This is a hugely important topic, and they seem to have done quite an extensive amount of work on this. Here are some quotes from the press release, and then I’ll make some comments of my own at the end:

“Women are capable of contributing more to the nation’s science and engineering research enterprise, but bias and outmoded practices governing academic success impede their progress almost every step of the way,” said Donna E. Shalala, president of the University of Miami, former secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and chair of the committee that wrote the report. “Fundamental changes in the culture and opportunities at America’s research universities are urgently needed. The United States should enhance its talent pool by making the most of its entire population.”

Much the same can be said (and has been said in, e.g., my earlier blog posts on CV) about the largely untapped talent pool of minorities in general, of course. Continue reading ‘On The Potential of Women Scientists and Engineers in Academia’