and not academia. Even for those who don’t start their own companies, the database could help them get discovered by companies that are looking for diverse talent. “Often, we hear that employers and search committees can’t find qualified candidates,” Miller said. “This database will help to alleviate that issue because it will now be much easier to find more diverse candidates based on their publication records.
“The way that people pick research directions is not at all scientific,” Prescod-Weinstein said. “So why not add the social factor into it where people can say, ‘Actually, I’m going to go build research programs from citing Black women’?” “In many ways, the historical refusal to pay close attention to race, gender, ethnicity in STEM reifies structural inequalities that perpetuate discrimination against marginalized communities, particularly Black women,” Smith said.Prescod-Weinstein is a self-described activist for equality in science and an outspoken critic of how science gets done in America.