Declining Number of Blacks Seen in Math in Science

 That’s a stereotype Jemison knows well. “The media images you see of scientists are older white males who are goofy or socially inept in some way,” she says.

“That’s the mad scientist, the geek” – and it doesn’t include role models for young black and Hispanic students. Jemison, who watched “Star Trek” growing up, declines to call the black female character Lieutenant Uhura an inspiration,                   

 

 

Growing up in Murfreesboro, Tenn., Christopher Smith used to tutor fellow black students at his high school. The students would often start solving a complicated math problem by doing everything right. “Then they would say, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing!'” recalls Smith, now pursuing a PhD in biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

He thinks some African-Americans psych themselves out of STEM.

“Today I talk to friends back home, and they say, ‘I wouldn’t be able to do good in college anyway.’ A lot of it is just confidence,” Smith says. “If people convince you that science and math is harder than everything else, and you already have low self-esteem, maybe that’s one reason there are so few black scientists.”
“Few” is a generous term in Smith’s field of biological and biomedical sciences, where 6,957 PhDs were awarded in 2009. Only 88 went to black men – that’s 1 percent. (176 went to black women.

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