QnAs: Black voices in STEM

Abstract

As the Black Lives Matter movement continues sweeping across the nation, it amplifies diverse voices from all corners of academia. In an effort to continue the dialogue about representation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), PNAS spoke with Black scholars from a range of disciplines. Mentorship and a welcoming environment are essential for retaining diversity in STEM. Image credit: Alex Boersma/PNAS. Angela Byars-Winston is the first Black faculty member to achieve the rank of tenured full professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She served on the Board on Higher Education and Workforce at the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) between 2015 and 2020 and chaired a 2019 NASEM study on mentoring in STEM (1). Former US President Barack Obama selected Byars-Winston as a “Champion of Change” for her efforts to diversify STEM fields. Theoretical physicist Jim Gates served on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology during the Obama administration. Now director of Brown University’s theoretical physics center and 2021 president of the American Physical Society, Gates cowrote an authoritative and comprehensive book on supersymmetry (2) and was awarded the National Medal of Science. He is the first African American theoretical physicist elected to the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS). During his tenure at the University of Maryland, College Park, Gates became the first African American to hold an endowed chair in physics at a major research university in the United States. Evelynn Hammonds is chair of the Department of the History of Science and professor of African and African American studies at Harvard University. She served as the first African American and the first female dean of Harvard College from 2008 to 2013. Under President Obama, Hammonds was on the President’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and …