Spotlight:
Tara Astigarraga is an IBM Master Inventor & Senior Software Engineer and enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.
image credit: ibm.com
Spotlight:
Johnnie Jae
Johnnie Jae is a member of the Otoe-Missouria and Choctaw tribal nations of Oklahoma. She is founder/editor or A Tribe Called Geek, an award-winning media platform for Indigenous Geek Culture and STEM. She boasts many more roles including journalist, podcaster, community builder, advocate, technologist, and speaker. Engage with her at her web site, on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and You Tube.
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Articles
Allen, D., Dancy, M., Stearns, E., Mickelson, R., & Bottia, M. (2022). Racism, sexism and disconnection: Contrasting experiences of Black women in STEM before and after transfer from community college. International Journal of STEM Education, 9(1), 20.
Park, C. J., & Rottinghaus, P. J. (2023). Academic satisfaction of women students of color in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics: Roles of discrimination, proactive personality, and critical consciousness. Journal of Career Assessment, 31(2), 298-320. https://doi.org/10.1177/10690727221116872
Nkrumah, T., & Scott, K. A. (2022). Mentoring in STEM higher education: a synthesis of the literature to (re)present the excluded women of color. International Journal of STEM Education, 9(1), 50.
Miles, M. L., Agger, C. A., Roby, R. S., & Morton, T. R. (2022). Who's who: How “women of color” are (or are not) represented in STEM education research. Science Education, 106(2), 229-256. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21694
Cantor, N., Mack, K. M., McDermott, P., & Taylor, O. L. (2014). If not now, when? The promise of STEM intersectionality in the twenty-first century. Peer Review, 16(2), 29–31.
Kant, J. M., Burckhard, S. R., & Meyers, R. T. (2018). Engaging high school girls in Native American culturally responsive STEAM enrichment activities. Journal of STEM Education: Innovations & Research, 18(5), 15–25.
Morton, T. R., & Parsons, E. C. (2018). #BlackGirlMagic: The identity conceptualization of Black women in undergraduate STEM education. Science Education, 102(6), 1363–1393.
Banda, R. M., & Flowers, A. M. (2018). Critical qualitative research as a means to advocate for Latinas in STEM. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education (QSE), 31(8), 769–783.
Sayman, D. (2015). “I was scared to be the stupid”: Latinas in residential academies of science and math. Multiple Voices for Ethnically Diverse Exceptional Learners, 15(2), 22–35.
Contreras Aguirre, H. C., Gonzalez, E., & Banda, R. M. (2020). Latina college students’ experiences in STEM at Hispanic-Serving Institutions: framed within Latino critical race theory. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education (QSE), 33(8), 810–823.
Ong, M., Wright, C., Espinosa, L., & Orfield, G. (2011). Inside the double bind: A synthesis of empirical research on undergraduate and graduate women of color in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Harvard Educational Review, 81(2), 172-209.
Ong, M., Smith, J. M., & Ko, L. T. (2018). Counterspaces for women of color in STEM higher education: Marginal and central spaces for persistence and success. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 55(2), 206-245.
Alfred, M. V., Ray, S. M., & Johnson, M. A. (2019). Advancing women of color in STEM: an imperative for US global competitiveness. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 21(1), 114-132.
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Featured BIPOC Women in STEM
Timnit Gebru: AI Computer Scientist
Gebru works on algorithmic bias, and is an advocate for diversity in technology. Founder of Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (DAIR). Learn more about Gebru's abrupt departure from Google and what she has done since then.
Joy Buolamwini: Poet of Code
"Dr. Joy Buolamwini is the founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, an award-winning researcher, and poet of code. She advises world leaders, policymakers, and executives on redressing algorithmic harms. Her work is featured in global exhibitions and the documentary Coded Bias available on Netflix." [source]
image licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Leena Gade: British Race Engineer
First woman race engineer to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Has served as lead race engineer in the FIA World Endurance Championship and IndyCar race series. Has achieved many accomplishments in race engineering. Learn more.
image licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
Tu Youyou: Nobel Prize Winner
Chemist and educator. She is the first Chinese woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine -- "for her discoveries concerning a novel therapy against Malaria."
Valerie Thomas: NASA Scientist, Inventor
Very few patents are held by Black inventors, and even fewer by Black women. Thomas holds one for her "illusion transmitter" that she invented in 1978. The technology is still used by NASA today. She managed a NASA team for "Landstat," the first satellite of its kind to take multi-spectral images of earth for research. Learn more.
Image is in the public domain (NASA).
Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson: 18th President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Theoretical physicist. First African-American woman to lead a top-ranked research university. First African-American woman to earn a doctorate from MIT. Learn more.
Aisha Bowe: Founder/CEO, STEMBoard
Her high school guidance counselor suggested cosmetology school. She chose aerospace engineering. She is now CEO of her own company and works to expose underrepresented youth to STEM. Named by Goldie Blox as one of 13 Black women in STEM to know. Learn more about Aisha Bowe.
Dr. France Córdova and Dr. Gabriela González
Two Latinas at the Forefront of Historic Science Discovery
Learn more about Dr. France Córdova, National Science Foundation Director
Learn more about Dr. Gabriela González, Professor of Physics at LSU
image credit cordova
image credit gonzalez
Mary G. Ross (1908 - 2008)
Member of the Cherokee Nation, and trailblazer for indigenous women in STEM. Her degrees were in mathematics; she was the first woman engineer at Lockheed, where she worked for over 30 years. Learn more.
BIPOC Women of NASA: Current Active Astronauts (as of Jan. 2022)
Top row: Jeanette J. Epps and Jessica Watkins
Bottom row: Sunita L. Williams and Stephanie D. Wilson
all images are in the public domain
Books
Women of Color in STEM: Navigating the Double Bind in Higher Education by
Though there has been a rapid increase of women's representation in law and business, their representation in STEM fields has not been matched. Researchers have revealed that there are several environmental and social barriers including stereotypes, gender bias, and the climate of science and engineering departments in colleges and universities that continue to block women's progress in STEM. In this book, the authors address the issues that encounter women of color in STEM in higher education.
Publication Date: 2021
Seeing the Hidden Minority: Increasing the Talent Pool Through Identity, Socialization, and Mentoring Constructs. by
The participation of Black students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, is an issue of national concern. Several chapters of this book focus primarily on Black women in STEM.
ISBN: 9781641139489Publication Date: 2020
Chemistry: A Novel by
Multi-award winning novel. Three years into her graduate studies at a demanding Boston university, the unnamed Asian narrator finds her one-time love for chemistry is more hypothesis than reality. Eventually, the pressure mounts so high that she must leave everything she thought she knew about her future, and herself, behind. She's confronted with a question she won't find the answer to in a textbook: What do I really want?
Call Number: Available through MeLCatPublication Date: 2017
African American Women Chemists in the Modern Era by
This book was produced by taking the oral history of women who are leaders in their field and who wanted to tell the world how they succeeded. It features eighteen amazing women and each of them has a claim to fame, despite hiding in plain sight. These women reveal the history of their lives from youth to adult.
ISBN: 9780190615185Publication Date: 2018
Madame Chien-Shiung Wu by
Narrating the well-lived life of the "Chinese Madame Curie" -- a recipient of the first Wolf Prize in Physics (1978), the first woman to receive an honorary doctorate from Princeton University, as well as the first female president of the American Physical Society -- this book provides a comprehensive and honest account of the life of Dr Wu Chien-Shiung, an outstanding and leading experimental physicist of the 20th century.
Publication Date: 2014
Sisters in Science: Conversations with Black Women Scientists on Race, Gender, and Their Passion for Science by
Author Diann Jordan took a journey to find out what inspired and daunted black women in their desire to become scientists in America. Letting 18 prominent black women scientists talk for themselves, Sisters in Science becomes an oral history stretching across decades and disciplines and desires. From Yvonne Clark, the first black woman to be awarded a B.S. in mechanical engineering to Georgia Dunston, a microbiologist who is researching the genetic code for her race, to Shirley Jackson, whose aspiration led to the presidency of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Jordan has created a significant record of women who persevered to become firsts in many of their fields. It all began for Jordan when she was asked to give a presentation on black women scientists. She found little information and little help. After almost nine years of work, the stories of black women scientists can finally be told.
Publication Date: 2006
Spotlight:
Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is professor of physics, astronomy, and women’s and gender studies at the University of New Hampshire. Her science research focuses on cosmology, neutron stars, and dark matter. She also does research in Black feminist science, technology, and society studies. She was named one of 10 people who shaped science in 2020 by Nature, and was recognized as one of “15 Black Women Who Are Paving the Way in STEM and Breaking Barriers” by Essence.
Her book, The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred, is available through Wayne State University Library. Book preview.
Image credit: UNH Dept. of Physics & Astronomy