Paula T Hammond CHEMICAL ENGINEER Ashanti Johnson GEOCHEMIST CHEMICAL OCEANOGRAPHER Yasmin Hurd NEUROBIOLOGIST Phyllis A Dennery NEONATOLOGIST Lisa D White GEOLOGIST MICROPALEONTOLOGIST Emma Garrison-Alexander CYBERSECURITY PROFESSIONAL Kimberly Bryant ELECTRICAL ENGINEER FOUNDER OF BLACK GIRLS CODE Aprille Joy Ericsson AEROSPACE ENGINEER Lisette Titre-Montgomery VIDEO GAME DEVELOPER Latanya Sweeney COMPUTER SCIENTIST DATA SCIENTIST Patrice Banks MECHANIC Aomawa Shields ASTRONOMER ASTROBIOLOGIST Omega NOTES SELECTED SOURCES ACKNOWLEDGMENTS IMAGE CREDITS INDEX 131 134 138 141 143 148 151 154 160 162 166 168 173 176 195 196 198 200
ALPHA During her 2001 2004 tenure in a leadership position at the National Science Foundation NSF white biologist Dr Judith Ramaley took a shine to the acronym STEM Science Technology Engineering Mathematics The NSF a federal agency that funds education and research in specified fields had previously used SMET Science Math Engineering Technology Dr Ramaley championed championed the shift from SMET to STEM she said because science and math support the other two disciplines and because STEM sounds nicer than SMET Too SMET subtly implies that science and math came first or were better The newer term suggests a meaningful connection among them With STEM the NSF doesn’t include physicians and some other medical professionals Understandable When the SMET then STEM push began the nation had no shortage of doctors for example This was not the case with other fields such as engineering Pinning down STEM is a bit tricky For example the US Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics considers nursing a STEM field but the NSF does not And while the NSF lists certain social sciences as STEM psychology for example the Department of Commerce does not 1
Hmm When it comes to history many people take a broad view of STEM I am one of them Just as in an overview of technology technology I wouldn’t start with the mainframe computer and omit the wheel and the Gutenberg press so Changing the Equation 50 US Black Women in STEM includes physicians for example such as the first woman you will meet in the book Dr Rebecca Crumpler She earned her MD in 1864 four years before black people in America had citizenship six years before black men had the right to the national vote and fifty-six years before America’s women had that right too How can we not honor the pioneers in science technology technology engineering and mathematics women who in their day were cutting-edge Women who didn’t have access to the sort of education that would allow them to enter some now NSF-approved STEM field Women like Dr Crumpler blazed a trail for others in this book whose contributions and or personal stories also called to me intrigued me piqued my curiosity Women such as biochemist Marie Maynard Daly computer scientist and more Donna Auguste industrial engineer Pamela McCauley chemical engineer Paula T Hammond geologist and micropaleontologist Lisa D White cybersecurity pro Emma Garrison-Alexander and aerospace engineer Aprille Joy Ericsson In these profiles some short some longish and in quick mentions in boldface you will encounter women with an 2 CHANGING THE EQUATION
array of academic degrees including two kinds of doctors those with medical degrees MDs and those with doctorates doctorates aka PhDs the highest academic degree possible Some degrees were earned at historically black colleges and universities universities such as Hampton Howard and Tuskegee others at majority-white institutions such as Columbia Cornell Har vard and MIT In the pages of this book you just might find role models inspirations You might also rethink a field you once dismissed dismissed as something you would never do Or be able to do Maybe too you’ll discover a vocation you did not know existed and think Hmm maybe that’s for me PhD the abbreviation for the Latin philosophiae doctor doctor of philosophy is awarded in a range of fields from English to Engineering Engineering Philosophy here is used in the broadest sense of the Greek philosophía φιλοσοφία φιλοσοφία meaning love of wisdom Doctor descends from the Latin docere to teach MD is the abbreviation for the Latin medicinae doctor teacher of medicine 3 ALPHA
