Collaboration and leadership

Abstract

This is a guest editorial by Murrell Godfrey from the University of Mississippi, Renã A. S. Robinson from Vanderbilt University, and Emanuel Waddell from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. They are the president, president-elect, and immediate past president of the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE). The COVID-19 pandemic shed light on the historical, long-standing, and still current issues of systemic racism and social injustice in the US. Since the inception of the pandemic, racial inequities have meant increased hospitalization and mortality rates for Black people and other people of color. George Floyd’s narration of his own death—which was made publicly available and shared widely through social media—was particularly revealing. Though we mourn his death and so many others, they have galvanized social movements. Floyd’s tragic death catalyzed change in the US across many facets of life, chemistry included. Within the field