January 31, 2014

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Twitter, Black Women, and Graduate Education – a place for a dispersed community

I know abouta little overdozen African-American Women with or earning a Ph.D. I count both real life friend and on-line associates. When I list them in a Twitter #FollowFriday list it looks like a lot.

By DNLee

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This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

I know about a little over dozen African-American Women with or earning a Ph.D. I count both real life friend and on-line associates. When I list them in a Twitter #FollowFriday list it looks like a lot. (BTW, you should follow @TheNaturalHaven, @DrFayOnline, @Lachelle_Dawn, @LuceliaCherie, @DrRubidium, @astroholbrook, @artfulaction, @alondra, @dr_tindall, @BlackDocs, @CoquiNegra, @artcoholic, @meinhermitage, @katellington). But it's not. When you take these handfuls of amazing ladies and cast it against the bigger numbers, well it's only a sliver of the pie. My personal experiences in my field of study include being only the second African-American to enter the doctorate program at my phd grad school program and at my post-doc institution I seemed to be the first black post-doc to ever set foot in the door. Though there were two other African-American phd students in the department (both in my lab coincidentally). All of that to say, it can get a little lonely in academia, especially in the sciences.

I was honored to participate in an online discussion about Black Women and the PhD with TTG + Partners (@ttgpartners).

Diverse Issues in Higher Education did a write-up of the chat:Twitter Chat Creates Virtual Community for Black Women Ph.D.s. It was a great discussion. Many gems were shared and I hope - community was fostered. Check it out.

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DNLee is a biologist and she studies animal behavior, mammalogy, and ecology . She uses social media, informal experiential science experiences, and draws from hip hop culture to share science with general audiences, particularly under-served groups.

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