Jedidah Isler: The Untapped Genius That Could Change Science for the Better | TED

66,278 views ・ 2016-01-07

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Great things happen at intersections.
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In fact, I would argue that some of the most interesting things
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of the human experience occur at the intersections,
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in the liminal space,
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where by liminal I mean the space in-between.
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There's freedom in that in-between,
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freedom to create from the indefiniteness of not-quite-here, not-quite-there,
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a new self-definition.
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Some of the great intersections of the world come to mind,
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like the Arc de Triomphe in Paris,
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or Times Square in New York City,
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both bustling with the excitement of a seemingly endless stream of people.
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Other intersections,
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like the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama,
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or Canfield Drive and Copper Creek Court in Ferguson, Missouri, also come to mind
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because of the tremendous energy at the intersection of human beings,
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ideologies and the ongoing struggle for justice.
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Beyond the physical landscape of our planet,
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some of the most famous celestial images are of intersections.
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Stars are born at the messy intersection of gas and dust,
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instigated by gravity's irrevocable pull.
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Stars die by this same intersection, this time flung outward
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in a violent collision of smaller atoms,
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intersecting and efficiently fusing into altogether new and heavier things.
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We can all think of intersections that have special meaning to us.
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To be intersectional, then,
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is to occupy a position at an intersection.
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I've lived the entirety of my life in the in-between,
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in the liminal space between dreams and reality,
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race and gender,
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poverty and plenty,
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science and society.
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I am both black and a woman.
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Like the birth of stars in the heavenlies,
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this robust combination of knowing results in a shining example
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of the explosive fusion of identities.
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I am also an astrophysicist.
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I study blazars, supermassive, hyperactive black holes
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that sit at the centers of massive galaxies
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and shoot out jets nearby those black holes
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at speeds approaching the speed of light
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in a process we are still trying to completely understand.
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I have dreamed of becoming an astrophysicist
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since I was 12 years old.
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I had no idea that at that time,
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according to Dr. Jamie Alexander's archive of African-American women in physics,
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only 18 black women in the United States had ever earned a PhD
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in a physics-related discipline,
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and that the first black woman to graduate with a PhD in an astronomy-related field
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did so just one year before my birth.
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As I journeyed along my path,
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I encountered the best and worst of life at an intersection:
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the tremendous opportunity to self-define,
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the collision of expectation and experience,
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the exhilaration of victorious breakthroughs
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and, sometimes,
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the explosive pain of regeneration.
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I began my college experience just after my family had fallen apart.
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Our financial situation disintegrated
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just after my father's departure from our lives.
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This thrust my mother, my sister and I
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out of the relative comfort of middle-class life
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and into the almost constant struggle to make ends meet.
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Thus, I was one of roughly 60 percent of women of color
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who find finances to be a major barrier to their educational goals.
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Thankfully, Norfolk State University provided me with full funding,
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and I was able to achieve my bachelor's in physics.
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After graduation, and despite knowing that I wanted a PhD in astrophysics,
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I fell through the cracks.
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It was a poster that saved my dream,
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and some really incredible people and programs.
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The American Physical Society had this beautiful poster
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encouraging students of color to become physicists.
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It was striking to me because it featured a young black girl,
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probably around 12 years old,
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looking studiously at some physics equations.
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I remember thinking
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I was looking directly back at the little girl
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who first dared to dream this dream.
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I immediately wrote to the Society
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and requested my personal copy of the poster,
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which to this day still hangs in my office.
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I described to them in the email my educational path,
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and my desire to find myself again in pursuit of the PhD.
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They directed me to the Fisk-Vanderbilt University Bridge Program,
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itself an intersection of the master's and PhD degrees
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at two institutions.
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After two years out of school, they accepted me into the program,
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and I found myself again on the path to the PhD.
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After receiving my master's at Fisk,
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I went on to Yale to complete my PhD.
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Once I was physically occupying the space that would ultimately give way
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to my childhood aspirations,
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I anticipated a smooth glide to the PhD.
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(Laughter)
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It became immediately apparent
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that not everyone was thrilled to have that degree of liminality
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in their space.
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I was ostracized by many of my classmates,
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one of whom went so far as to invite me to "do what I really came here to do"
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as he pushed all the dirty dishes from our meal in front of me to clean up.
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I wish that were an isolated occurrence,
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but for many women of color
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in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or STEM,
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this is something they have long endured.
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One hundred percent of the 60 women of color
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interviewed in a recent study by Joan C. Williams at UC Hastings
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reported facing racialized gender bias,
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including being mistaken for the janitorial staff.
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This mistaken identity was not reported
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by any of the white women interviewed for this study,
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which comprised 557 women in total.
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While there is nothing inherently wrong with a janitorial position,
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and in fact my forefathers and foremothers were able to attend college
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because many of their parents worked these jobs,
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it was a clear attempt to put me in my place.
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While there was certainly the acute pain of the encounter,
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the real issue is that my appearance
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can tell anyone anything about my ability.
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Beyond that, though, it underscores
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that the women of color in STEM do not experience the same set of barriers
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that just women or just people of color face.
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That's why today I want to highlight women of color in STEM,
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who are inexorably, unapologetically
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living as the inseparable sum of identities.
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STEM itself is an intersectional term,
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such that its true richness cannot be appreciated
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without considering the liminal space between disciplines.
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Science, the pursuit of understanding the physical world
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by way of chemistry, physics, biology,
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cannot be accomplished in the absence of mathematics.
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Engineering requires the application of basic science and math
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to the lived experience.
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Technology sits firmly on the foundation of math,
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engineering and science.
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Math itself serves the critical role of Rosetta Stone,
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decoding and encoding the physical principles of the world.
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STEM is utterly incomplete without each individual piece.
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This is to say nothing of the enrichment that is realized
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when STEM is combined with other disciplines.
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The purpose for this talk is twofold:
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first, to say directly to every black, Latina, indigenous, First Nation
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or any other woman or girl
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who finds herself resting at the blessed intersection
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of race and gender,
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that you can be anything you want to be.
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My personal hope is that you'll become an astrophysicist,
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but beyond that, anything you want.
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Do not think for one minute
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that because you are who you are,
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you cannot be who you imagine yourself to be.
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Hold fast to those dreams
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and let them carry you into a world you can't even imagine.
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Secondly, among the most pressing issues of our time,
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most now find their intersection with STEM.
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We have as a global society solved
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most of the single-faceted issues of our time.
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Those that remain require a thorough investigation
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of the liminal space between disciplines
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to create the multifaceted solutions of tomorrow.
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Who better to solve these liminal problems
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than those who have faced their whole lives at the intersections.
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We as thought leaders and decision makers
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must push past the first steps of diversity
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and into the richer and more robust territory
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of full inclusion and equal opportunity.
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One of my favorite examples of liminal excellence
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comes from the late Dr. Claudia Alexander,
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a black woman plasma physicist,
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who passed away this past July after a 10-year bout with breast cancer.
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She was a NASA project scientist who spearheaded the NASA side
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of the Rosetta mission,
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which became famous this year for landing a rover on a comet,
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and the 1.5 billion dollar Galileo mission to Jupiter,
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two high-profile scientific victories
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for NASA, the United States and the world.
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Dr. Alexander said it this way:
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"I'm used to walking between two cultures.
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For me, it's among the purposes of my life
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to take us from states of ignorance to states of understanding
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with bold exploration that you can't do every day."
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This shows exactly the power of a liminal person.
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She had the technical ability to spearhead
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some of the most ambitious space missions of our time,
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and she perfectly understood her place
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of being exactly who she was in any place she was.
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Jessica Matthews, inventor of the SOCCKET line of sports products,
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like soccer balls, that generate renewable energy as you play with them,
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said it this way:
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"A major part of invention isn't just creating things,
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it's understanding people
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and understanding the systems that make this world."
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The reason I tell my story
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and the story of Dr. Alexander and Jessica Matthews
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is because they are fundamentally intersectional stories,
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the stories of lives lived at the nexus of race, gender and innovation.
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Despite implicit and explicit questions of my right to be in an elite space,
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I'm proud to report that when I graduated,
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I was the first black woman to earn a PhD in astrophysics
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in Yale's then 312-year history.
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(Applause)
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I am now part of a small but growing cadre of women of color in STEM
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who are poised to bring new perspectives and new ideas to life
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on the most pressing issues of our time:
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things like educational inequities,
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police brutality, HIV/AIDS, climate change, genetic editing,
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artificial intelligence and Mars exploration.
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This is to say nothing of the things we haven't even thought of yet.
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Women of color in STEM occupy some of the toughest
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and most exciting sociotechnological issues of our time.
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Thus, we are uniquely positioned
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to contribute to and drive these conversations
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in ways that are more inclusive of a wider variety of lived experience.
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This outlook can be expanded to the many intersectional people
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whose experiences, positive and negative,
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enrich the conversations in ways that outmatch
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even the best-resourced homogenous groups.
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This is not a request born out of a desire to fit in.
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It's a reminder that we cannot get to the best possible outcomes
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for the totality of humanity
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without precisely this collaboration,
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this bringing together of the liminal,
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the differently lived, distinctly experienced
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and disparately impacted.
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Simply put, we cannot be the most excellent expression
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of our collective genius
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without the full measure of humanity brought to bear.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
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