How this theoretical physicist is advocating for women of colour in STEMPosted in Articles, Gay & Lesbian, Interviews, Media Archive, Videos, Women on 2019-07-11 19:17Z by Steven |
How this theoretical physicist is advocating for women of colour in STEM
tvo
Toronto, Canada
2019-07-11
 Nam Kiwanuka interviews theoretical physicist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein |
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein talks to The Agenda in the Summer about her identity as a queer Black woman, the importance of mentorship, and why advocacy is a vital component of her work
What makes a person dream of becoming a theoretical physicist? In Chanda Prescod-Weinstein’s case, it was growing up with activist parents. Her mother, Margaret Prescod, has headed up various advocacy groups, including International Black Women for Wages for Housework, and is the host and producer of Sojourner Truth, a public-affairs radio show in Los Angeles. Her father, Sam Weinstein, is a labour organizer.
As she tells Nam Kiwanuka on The Agenda in the Summer, “I spent my entire childhood being confronted with things that weren’t going right in the world and things that needed to be better about the world. And I think part of what was attractive to me about doing cosmology and particle physics was here was a thing that was beyond these human concerns … something that was bigger than all of us but interested all of us. Where do we come from: Why are we here? These really big esoteric questions.”
 Chanda at age four with her parents Sam Weinstein and Margaret Prescod (Los Angeles Times/ucla.edu) |
Now a physics professor at the University of New Hampshire, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein has conducted research on such topics as axions, dark matter, and quantum fields. She’s also an advocate for Black women, and LGBTQ people in STEM…
Read the entire article here.