By: Kiara Wilkerson (’22), Staff Writer
Whenever you hear of a researcher or scientist in the news, they are most likely a white man. Black people, and more specifically Black women, are underrepresented in STEM fields. Based on data compiled in 2019, less than 10% of Black people have completed a bachelor’s degree in science, technology, engineering, or math. Not only is this statistic extremely alarming, but it also poses a risk to unintentional biases that may negatively affect important research and inventions.
One Black woman who is rewriting this narrative is a social psychology researcher named Jennifer L. Eberhardt. She is currently a professor at Stanford University but has provided the field of psychology with information relating to race, crime, and judgment in American culture. Eberhardt has won more than a dozen awards for her contributions and is a distinguished social psychologist and researcher. Her most recent research has revolved around racial biases and how they can result from differences in our methods of perception. For this research, Eberhardt looks at the processes that humans use to categorize and judge the information presented to them. Through her research, she has found that white people in particular respond to Black faces categorically rather than individually. In other words, they generalize one Black person to their entire race and see them as more threatening as a whole. Multiple studies that she has looked at have shown that non-Black people associate Black people with weapons and violence in general compared to white people. This perception, Eberhardt concludes, plays into discriminatory actions and prejudice towards Black people. Not only is she adding to the much needed diversity of her field, but she is also relating science to the real-life experiences of Black people.
Another Black woman who is more involved with current research issues is Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett. She is one of the leading National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists involved in developing a vaccine for the coronavirus, and is also a former UNC graduate student. As a member of the National Institutes of Health, Corbett has even been credited for her contributions to ending the pandemic by Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. In other words, she is the reason why millions of Americans have already been able to receive a vaccine. Due to the history of Black people and the medical trial runs that come with the development of treatments, it is comforting to know that our vaccine has been made by a fellow Black woman who is aware of this history.
Just from these two examples of Black women that are doing exemplary things in their respective STEM fields, we can see that having Black women as a part of the team is essential to any and every type of occupation. When Black women have the opportunity, support, and encouragement to enter STEM fields, there is no telling what they will accomplish.
Sources:
https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/20201214/black-scientist-plays-key-role-in-covid-vaccine#:~:text=Dec.,role%20in%20the%20vaccine’s%20development.
https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf19304/digest/field-of-degree-minorities#blacks-or-african-americans
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