Diversity in Science

Well I just heard that I was nominated as a "Women in Science: 50 Must Read Bloggers" by a website called, Phlebotomy Technician Schools.

Phlebotomy. What the heck is Phlebotomy? Apparently, the practice of collecting blood samples.

(Avoiding the vampire jokes.)

Cool.I'm on The List. So, I scroll down and find that at #35, this is how my blog has been described:

A blog chronicling the saga of a first year African- American postdoc from Canada. Read these engaging posts on her issues with finishing her thesis, race, gender and just being a scientist.

Engaging. Nice.

I have one complaint - Dudes I finished that thesis bitch long ago and defended it. That's why I've entitled the blog, "Canadian girl postdoc in America." Not that I'm ungrateful, but geez, guys I hope you draw blood better than this.

Now on to The Diversity Post.

DNLee over at Urban Science Adventures has introduced a Blog Carnival in honour of Black History month celebrate a person who is a pioneer and/or innovator in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM).

Because of my 'accidental' attraction for mathematicians, I have decided to write about Katherine Okikolu, a black female who is an Associate Professor of Mathematics University of California at San Diego. Well like all good mathematicians, this one is the progeny of a mathematician (her father) and a physicist (her mother). She received her B.A. in Mathematics from Cambridge University in England and earned her Ph.D. at UCLA in 1991. Her post-doctoral experience took her to Princeton and MIT. She landed her faculty position at UCSD in 1997. Dr. Okikolu is the recipient of many prestigious awards like the Sloan Fellowship ($70,000) and the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers ($500,000). Her research areas include: Classical Analysis, Differential Geometry, Partial Differential Equations and Operator Theory. None of which I have any clue about. Meh.

That sounded like an introduction at some kind of conference. Dry and boring. Yeck. In an attempt to find out more about her, I emailed Dr. Okikolu, but I never heard back.

(Snubbed again by the math world.)

What I think would provide perspective on just how much she has impacted the field of STEM is to look at the stats for 2006 on doctorate holders (NSF report) who are employed at universities and 4-year colleges. Of the full rank Professors in Science and Engineering, 68% are white and male, 24% are white females, and a mere 1.3% are black and female. Asian females do a little better coming in at 1.5%. And of the 5500 mathematicians in the country, of which only 600 are female, I'd say Dr. Okikolu's presence there is impact enough. Like I've said before. Be present.

It was only 66 years ago, when the first black female received a PhD in Mathematics. Euphemia Lofton Haynes. And 30 years ago only 17 black females had earned PhDs in the field of Mathematics. Here is a really cool herstory on black female mathematicians.

So is our academic landscape changing? If the full rank Professors represent the old guard, then we should really look at the Assistant Professors because these are people who have yet to get tenure and are likely to represent new hires. Fourty-four percent are white and male and 30% are made up of white females. Three percent are Asian females and 2.2% are black females.

On the surface, it appears like the numbers have doubled. And, if we assume a constant rate of increase (highly unlikely in these harsh economic times), we'll have to wait at least 10 years before women make up 50% of the science and engineering faculty and well another 12 years more before black women make up 20%.

I'm not holding my breath. Here's why.

Of the 7,693 female graduate students in mathematics and statistics, 347 of them are black. Of the full-time undergraduates enroled at 4-year institutions, 6.5% of them are black females. White males make up 35% of that same population.

The stats speak for themselves, if we want to increase diversity at the top, we must start encouraging and financially supporting lots and lots (not just one or two or ten) of black females at the undergraduate level, graduate level, as postdoctoral scientists and finally as faculty. We will need to support at least twice as many as we aim to have because we already know from experience that it's difficult to keep women in academia.

And there's the rub - despite the fact that Obama promises to "restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost, " it will take a lot more than a one-time stimulus package of $21.5 billion. Throwing money at a problem helps in the short term, but it won't solve the long term attrition rates that continue to reduce the number of females in science.

The answer?

It's obvious. Change the environment.

At present, academia is a white, male, hierarchy that is competitive in the extreme. This winner-take-all mentality is a male construct and as construct it can be dismantled but if 44% of the people in power are white and male, there is no imperative to change.

And frankly, I disagree with DrugMonkey PhysioProf.

Academic science can be a fucking Care Bears tea party. Where there's a will, there's always a way.