Tackling the Recognition Gap
To be seen is a first step to true inclusion, and in 2022 I’m regularly struck by how we still collectively struggle to see one another and our respective contributions to our respective fields. This is a primary reason when founding the TechArena that I decided to establish a platform for stories that help gain more collective appreciation for individuals and teams who may be otherwise overlooked. It’s also why I was strongly drawn to the story of Jess Wade, a physicist at Imperial College London.
To say that Jess is a badass is an understatement. At the Blackett Laboratory, her research focuses on polymer-based organic light emitting diodes…or the technology that fuels the displays that we spend our lives staring at from smartphones to televisions. At thirty-four, she’s well published and on her way to an extraordinary career of contribution like many Imperial College scientists who came before her. But what’s interesting about this story is that Jess was brought to the TechArena and to the world’s attention for what she does in her off hours.
Jess has always been an advocate for inclusion having learned early in life that the STEM field was narrowly represented based on gender, race, and socioeconomic privilege. A few years ago, she decided to dial up her efforts by addressing the recognition gap, or more specifically, the missing stories of minority scientists from Wikipedia biographies. Today, women make up only nineteen percent of all biographies on Wikipedia, and the numbers for STEM related biographies are even worse. Jess decided to do something about this and dedicated herself to writing a Wikipedia biography every day to shine a light on the incredible scientific contributions that were made by people who, for whatever reason, were not seen fully for their research. Some interesting things have happened since that you can learn more about in our chat. Jess has also garnered some individual attention for her work winning a bevy of awards including being named one of Nature magazine’s 10 people who mattered in science in 2018 and winning the British Empire Medal in 2019.
While Jess shared a lot of great insight during our discussion, the thing that made me decide to bring this story to my Supercomputing publications was her observation that “we're really not designing the best tech solutions to all of these huge global challenges if we're only selecting our big coders or our problem solvers from a handful of the population.” This is not solely a feel-good story about delivering recognition, it’s a story of how we collectively reach farther and better to new insight and discovery of our most pressing global challenges lifted up by all of our collective perspectives. I was heartened to see a wealth of diverse technologists and scientists from a broad range of fields represented in SC’22 agenda and am looking forward to seeing if this is reflected in the conference proceedings as a whole. If you’d like to share your perspective on this important topic please connect on Twitter or LinkedIn.
To be seen is a first step to true inclusion, and in 2022 I’m regularly struck by how we still collectively struggle to see one another and our respective contributions to our respective fields. This is a primary reason when founding the TechArena that I decided to establish a platform for stories that help gain more collective appreciation for individuals and teams who may be otherwise overlooked. It’s also why I was strongly drawn to the story of Jess Wade, a physicist at Imperial College London.
To say that Jess is a badass is an understatement. At the Blackett Laboratory, her research focuses on polymer-based organic light emitting diodes…or the technology that fuels the displays that we spend our lives staring at from smartphones to televisions. At thirty-four, she’s well published and on her way to an extraordinary career of contribution like many Imperial College scientists who came before her. But what’s interesting about this story is that Jess was brought to the TechArena and to the world’s attention for what she does in her off hours.
Jess has always been an advocate for inclusion having learned early in life that the STEM field was narrowly represented based on gender, race, and socioeconomic privilege. A few years ago, she decided to dial up her efforts by addressing the recognition gap, or more specifically, the missing stories of minority scientists from Wikipedia biographies. Today, women make up only nineteen percent of all biographies on Wikipedia, and the numbers for STEM related biographies are even worse. Jess decided to do something about this and dedicated herself to writing a Wikipedia biography every day to shine a light on the incredible scientific contributions that were made by people who, for whatever reason, were not seen fully for their research. Some interesting things have happened since that you can learn more about in our chat. Jess has also garnered some individual attention for her work winning a bevy of awards including being named one of Nature magazine’s 10 people who mattered in science in 2018 and winning the British Empire Medal in 2019.
While Jess shared a lot of great insight during our discussion, the thing that made me decide to bring this story to my Supercomputing publications was her observation that “we're really not designing the best tech solutions to all of these huge global challenges if we're only selecting our big coders or our problem solvers from a handful of the population.” This is not solely a feel-good story about delivering recognition, it’s a story of how we collectively reach farther and better to new insight and discovery of our most pressing global challenges lifted up by all of our collective perspectives. I was heartened to see a wealth of diverse technologists and scientists from a broad range of fields represented in SC’22 agenda and am looking forward to seeing if this is reflected in the conference proceedings as a whole. If you’d like to share your perspective on this important topic please connect on Twitter or LinkedIn.
