Resilience is not listed as an objective on any curriculum or syllabus, yet it is an inevitable byproduct for any marginalized student who navigates the education system. While there are many well intended individuals or institutions that seek to challenge their students academically, these efforts become compounded with systemic barriers that prevent access to some groups and simultaneously weed others out. Dismal statistics capture national trends such as the school to prison pipeline that affects Black students and the high attrition rates of female students interested in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).
I earned the competitive Meyerhoff Scholarship, a scholarship that serves underrepresented minorities (URM) in STEM on their journey to terminal degrees-PhDs and MD,PhDs, at the honors university, University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Despite working three jobs to fill the financial gap between my scholarship and tuition, I graduated cum laude with a bachelor’s of science in biochemistry and molecular biology and a minor in psychology. High school trained me to accept being verbally and emotionally brutalized as the only Black woman in the classroom, but the Meyerhoff scholarship showed me a community that empowered and uplifted me. My tenure during university revealed the value of mentorship, advocacy, and a sense of belonging to my success.
My first experience meeting a Black, Latinx, or Indigenous doctor was in college. Seeing a representation of myself made my professional goals and dreams tangible. From that moment forward, I chose to be hypervisible in STEM spaces. Currently, I am a first generation doctoral candidate in neurobiology at Duke University. During my early years graduate school, I thought I was experiencing imposter syndrome, feelings of inadequacy, self doubt, and intellectual fraudulence despite external evidence of competence and success. However, my second year of my PhD program revealed I was not feeling imposter syndrome, but rather struggling against the gatekeeping and external hurdles to my success. A myriad of professors ranging from junior faculty to most senior, distinguished professors strongly encouraged me to leave with my master’s degree rather than completing a PhD. External doubt in my intellect merit almost demoralized me from applying to the competitive National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, but my internal confidence motivated me to apply. After I was the sole winner from my department to successfully become a National Science Foundation Fellow, I was berated with microaggressions that I must have received a diversity supplement. I refuse to allow this standard of training to continue for the next generation of scientists and researchers. I work with the School of Medicine diversity, equity, and inclusion advisory council to design implicit bias training for faculty, staff, postdocs, and graduate students, create inclusive and welcoming environments for graduate students, and reform recruitment of marginalized students in STEM.
Academic elitism in science actively discriminates against students coming from R2 and R3 research universities. My joint efforts along with other students and faculty committed to reform resulted in Duke actively recruiting from minority serving institutions, specifically Historically Black Colleges and Universities: North Carolina Central University, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Bennett College, Shaw University, and Winston Salem State University. I am currently planning novel ways to target early stage high school and undergraduate scientists to gain research experience at Duke University for summer internships. In the future, my department will allocate funds to send representatives to minority serving conferences such as the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) and the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS). My next immediate goal is to establish transparency in the graduate school recruitment, interview, and selection process. My work with the graduate school with transparency is to ensure candidates are evaluated based on their scientific experience, academic and research potential, and holistic application.
As a professor I will promote and embody diversity, equity, and inclusion by:
I earned the competitive Meyerhoff Scholarship, a scholarship that serves underrepresented minorities (URM) in STEM on their journey to terminal degrees-PhDs and MD,PhDs, at the honors university, University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Despite working three jobs to fill the financial gap between my scholarship and tuition, I graduated cum laude with a bachelor’s of science in biochemistry and molecular biology and a minor in psychology. High school trained me to accept being verbally and emotionally brutalized as the only Black woman in the classroom, but the Meyerhoff scholarship showed me a community that empowered and uplifted me. My tenure during university revealed the value of mentorship, advocacy, and a sense of belonging to my success.
My first experience meeting a Black, Latinx, or Indigenous doctor was in college. Seeing a representation of myself made my professional goals and dreams tangible. From that moment forward, I chose to be hypervisible in STEM spaces. Currently, I am a first generation doctoral candidate in neurobiology at Duke University. During my early years graduate school, I thought I was experiencing imposter syndrome, feelings of inadequacy, self doubt, and intellectual fraudulence despite external evidence of competence and success. However, my second year of my PhD program revealed I was not feeling imposter syndrome, but rather struggling against the gatekeeping and external hurdles to my success. A myriad of professors ranging from junior faculty to most senior, distinguished professors strongly encouraged me to leave with my master’s degree rather than completing a PhD. External doubt in my intellect merit almost demoralized me from applying to the competitive National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, but my internal confidence motivated me to apply. After I was the sole winner from my department to successfully become a National Science Foundation Fellow, I was berated with microaggressions that I must have received a diversity supplement. I refuse to allow this standard of training to continue for the next generation of scientists and researchers. I work with the School of Medicine diversity, equity, and inclusion advisory council to design implicit bias training for faculty, staff, postdocs, and graduate students, create inclusive and welcoming environments for graduate students, and reform recruitment of marginalized students in STEM.
Academic elitism in science actively discriminates against students coming from R2 and R3 research universities. My joint efforts along with other students and faculty committed to reform resulted in Duke actively recruiting from minority serving institutions, specifically Historically Black Colleges and Universities: North Carolina Central University, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Bennett College, Shaw University, and Winston Salem State University. I am currently planning novel ways to target early stage high school and undergraduate scientists to gain research experience at Duke University for summer internships. In the future, my department will allocate funds to send representatives to minority serving conferences such as the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) and the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS). My next immediate goal is to establish transparency in the graduate school recruitment, interview, and selection process. My work with the graduate school with transparency is to ensure candidates are evaluated based on their scientific experience, academic and research potential, and holistic application.
As a professor I will promote and embody diversity, equity, and inclusion by:
- Advocating for students who are often silenced or not heard
- Continuing broader impacts service to encourage elementary, middle, and high school students to participate in science
- Fostering relationships between predominately white institutions and minority serving institutions
- Creating feasible training guideline for faculty and staff to minimize the invisible laboring done by URM and female students, staff, and faculty
- Attending workshops and conferences to learn methods and interventions to support marginalized students
- Recruiting underrepresented minority students to research and teaching opportunities
- Employing teaching methods to emphasize different learning styles