07/23/2024 | News release | Distributed by Public on 07/23/2024 07:48
Editor's note: The opinions expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the AAMC or its members.
The AAMC Black Women in Scientific Research (BWiSR) project amplifies the voices and experiences of Black women researchers in academic medicine, with the understanding that when Black women are the authors of their own narratives, it provides essential perspectives beyond what quantitative data can reveal. Using intersectionality as a framework, the AAMC BWiSR project highlights biomedical researchers representing the career spectrum - early-career pioneers, mid-career leaders, and established experts. These researchers offer their perspectives on the challenges and triumphs encountered throughout their research journeys, challenging prevailing narratives, giving visibility to current Black women in research, increasing awareness of disparities and challenges facing this group, empowering and encouraging future researchers, and amplifying the value of representation. Learn more about the initiative.
Scientific progress is often conceptualized in terms of the "what": seminal discoveries, lifesaving cures, new-age therapeutics. But behind every great biomedical advancement is a scientific researcher questioning how to stretch the confines of human knowledge. This is the "who": the investigators who comprise an inimitable branch of the U.S. biomedical workforce.
As a nation, it is essential that we continue to explore the "who": Who are the individuals investigating the tenuous balance between health and disease? Who are the people paradoxically hunting for specificity (sometimes down to a single base pair of DNA), all while keeping an eye out for big-picture trends (such as health disparities in entire populations). Who are the investigators who borrow dogmas, frameworks, and theories from a vast array of fields - physical sciences, public health, computer science, biological sciences, engineering, and behavioral health - to drive scientific research forward?
Since my youth, I - like many - have been taught that the "who" largely resembled the likes of Gregor Mendel, Albert Einstein, and Thomas Edison. I was taught to laud Charles Darwin, Santiago Ramon y Cajal, Galileo, James Watson, and Francis Crick. These were the greats: White American or White European men, whose dominance in U.S. classrooms no doubt contributes to the fact that surveyed grade school children generally perceive the prototypical scientific researcher as a male with glasses and messy hair.
Yes, these scientists may be outstanding. But we often fail to acknowledge that their immortalized status and homogeneous representation are not because populations who have been missing from the dominant narrative have biological differences in aptitude, or a lack of natural ability, or have experienced a deficiency in meritocracy.
On the contrary, countless brilliant minds have been systemically marginalized and excluded from joining in our nation's discoveries - in turn leading to entire populations that are underrepresented in the U.S. biomedical workforce.
Indeed, historically excluded populations represent a small fraction of the biomedical sciences educational pipeline and workforce. In 2023, Black men and women earned just 7% of doctoral degrees in science and engineering, according to the National Science Foundation. Likewise, Black men and women represented just 9% of the STEM workforce in 2021.
While the proportion of Black women in scientific research is bleak, it is even more so in academic medicine. Recent AAMC data (2023-2024) find that among all full-time women faculty in basic and clinical departments - the academic homes for scientific researchers at U.S. medical institutions - Black women constituted a mere 5% of full professors, 5% of associate professors, 6% of assistant professors, and 6% of instructors. Career advancement in scientific research mirrors the same trend: According to the latest data, Black women constitute a paltry 2% of basic science department chairs and 10% of clinical department chairs.
Effective scientific research relies on "team science" - the ability to collaborate and cross-pollinate beyond singular individuals, research teams, fields of study, techniques, and institutions. In fact, research shows that diverse teams outperform homogeneous teams (see also this research article). The National Institutes of Health (NIH) strategic plan 2021-2025, under former NIH Director Francis Collins, MD, PhD, opened with a message to the American people: "The increasingly complex scientific questions that our society will face in the future will require not only diversity of scientific disciplines, but also diversity of thought, experience, and demographics."
This is why the "who" matters: the totality of the U.S. biomedical-research enterprise - from the research itself to the populations we serve, to the policies, laws, and regulations that govern discovery - can be effective only if that enterprise mirrors the population it studies.
And yet, because Black women make up such a small fraction of the U.S. scientific workforce, how are we to get a real sense of the factors that contribute to or prevent their inclusion and success?
One way is to explore their experiences and narratives - in their own voices.
Heather Beasley, PhD, a postdoctoral research scientist at Vanderbilt University and vice chair of the National Black Postdoctoral Association, reflects, "As you go into faculty, the fewer you see of women who identify as being Black, like I do. That can be a hindrance in a lot of ways, because being the first of anything comes with its own barriers."
Audrey Bowden, PhD, associate professor of Biomedical, Electrical and Computer Engineering and professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at Vanderbilt University likewise reflects on being a trailblazer and the challenges that come with that: "At my first institution, I was the first Black woman in the engineering school. And now, at my second institution, I am the first Black woman with tenure in the engineering school, and I was the only Black woman until recently. I've been in a lot of spaces where I'm the only one in the room, so for me, finding community has meant stepping outside of my disciplinary boundaries."
In addition to a well-documented lack of representation, Black women researchers and clinicians face a unique set of systemic, institutional, and cultural barriers, including implicit bias, enduring microaggressions, overt discrimination and racial bigotry, a minority tax, and sexual harassment that establish and fortify a sense of isolation throughout their scientific careers. It is therefore crucial that we focus not simply on the proportion of Black women in the biomedical sciences, but also on aspects of the research environment that serve to thwart or amplify their success.
On an institutional level, many solutions and interventions have been proposed to address the underrepresentation of women in science, engineering, and medicine, and to accelerate the path to gender equity in science. Specific strategies to bolster the representation of Black women and women of color (WOC) in STEMM include overhauling biased faculty-hiring processes to eliminate barriers of entry for historically excluded groups. Among other strategies are offering visiting professorships to WOC, particularly for named lectures and topics in addition to DEI and gender, providing mentorship and sponsorship to WOC, reducing barriers to retention and promotion, enhancing cultures of inclusive excellence through cohort hiring, promoting safe spaces (referred to as counterspaces), and expanding scientific workforce diversity as a field of data-driven inquiry.
Promoting the health of the research environment for Black women is not simply a task for Black women but, rather, the biomedical community at large.
We are at an inflection point in society: Black women in higher education, particularly those who champion an equitable, inclusive, and diverse workplace, are under attack. In these times, we must rely on voices - voices that have long been stifled or silenced - to guide the way. The worthy fight to build a scientific workforce that represents the U.S. population necessitates that we stop and find a way to listen.
Julia Omotade, PhD, is a cellular and molecular neuroscientist and senior science policy specialist at the AAMC.