Bridget: This is The Takeaway. I'm Bridget Bergen in for Tanzina Vega. This week, scientists across the world are celebrating the winners of the most prestigious award in science, the Nobel Prize. A few notable winners, Andrea Ghez, who won this week for her contributions to physics, and Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna, who won the chemistry prize for their work on CRISPR gene-editing tools. Three of the eight winners this year are women although none of the winners is a person of color.
Since the awards were first given in 1901, nearly every winner of the Nobel Prize for science has been a white man. In 119 years, only 23 women have won, a Black scientist has never won. The homogenous legacy of Nobel science laureates points to larger issues like global racial and gender education gaps and the hardships women and especially people of color still face working in STEM academic research.
Claudia Rankins is the program officer for the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Undergraduate Program and for National Science Foundation society as well. She also founded the Society of STEM Women of color. She spoke to Tanzina Vega yesterday with her personal opinions, not as a representative of the NSF about the issues that have prevented women and people of color from winning Nobel prizes for science, including some famous snubs in Nobel history, like Rosalind Franklin.
Claudia: First of all, each prize is limited to three people. There will always be those that are left out. Historically, it has always been that the men were the ones who received the prizes whose names went on the publications, which has something to do with who wins the prize. If you are not first author, or your name has even been omitted from the publication, people don't know you're part of the team. These women were never allowed to be the authors on the papers of the work they did. Also, to be a nominator for a Nobel Prize, you have to be invited by the Nobel Committee. Who is on the Nobel committee? Who has traditionally been on that committee? Who do they know? Who do they think knows enough to nominate Nobel Prize winners? Those are all good questions to look into.
Tanzina: There is still, Claudia, a significant gender gap and a significant racial gap among those who pursue STEM degrees. Why do you think the gap still exists?
Claudia: I would say, at this point, more so the racial gap maybe than even the gender gap. It's been the case that lately, some women, white women have been getting the Nobel Prize and been successful otherwise. The women's movement historically has been led by white women, and really, for white women, and it has advanced them. They are some fields in science where there are now more women than men. That goes less so for people from racial and ethnic minorities.
The discipline traditionally has not been very welcoming to anyone who wasn't part of the club. That's just changing recently. Efforts are under the way to change that. It was very hard in this country, for example, for Black scientists to gain a foothold. It hasn't been until maybe the mid-1960s where, in the south, they were allowed to attend universities and graduate schools that were predominantly white. These carry over to the present day.
Tanzina: Is there anything being done, Claudia, to increase the participation of Black and brown people and women specifically in STEM fields right now that you think is of note?
Claudia: There are many noteworthy efforts. I would say these efforts have been ongoing, but particularly in the last 20 years or so. The private efforts, institutions are making efforts. National funding agencies of science are certainly making efforts, great strides, and have programs but it's very hard to change a system that is so entrenched. It'll take more time.
I am very hopeful that among the young scientists that I know, many of whom are Black women, that the future Nobel Prize winners reside in that group. That said, we could definitely do more. We could make the disciplines more inviting. We could also be more inviting to diverse ideas. What we consider to be science and how we do science has been dictated for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, by one group of people, white men, basically. There may be different ways of looking at science, different groups may have different ideas of what's important to study or what science should be like. We see that right now with the COVID-19 epidemic, how it disproportionately affects certain populations. It definitely shows the need to bring diverse thinkers into science.
Tanzina: Claudia, is there anything or anyone in particular that you're looking for today, who you think is a rising star in the sciences?
Claudia: I was thinking of some names and two came to mind in my discipline. I'm a theoretical physicist so these are the people I know. There are two young women in particular, and I'll tell you their names, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, and Jedidah Isler. They both are cosmologists. There are probably hundreds of young Black faculty like that. People like that, I look for, being that next generation who hopefully, the Nobel Prize committee will look at 20 years from now and see in their body of work, which will be equivalent to that of all other candidates and think of them as worthy of that prize.
Tanzina: I guess a big question would be, what would science have looked like if the Nobel Prize had been more inclusive historically?
Claudia: Oh, my goodness. Yes. What was science look like if we had always included those we have been actively excluding? I promise you, it would be different. I promise you there would be some issues that we are grappling with currently, that we could maybe solve easier. What we study is what we think our communities need, what's important to our communities. I would imagine what indigenous scholars study would be different from what is currently being studied and probably benefit the environment much more in many ways. What those issues are that are important to the communities that need to be studied. Probably have a way to deal with lead poisoning in the water, and all these other issues that disproportionately affect Black and brown communities.
Tanzina: Claudia Rankins is the program officer for the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Undergraduate Program and for the Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology at the National Science Foundation. She also founded the Society of STEM Women of color. Claudia, thanks for joining me.
Claudia: Thank you so much.
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