Curator American Museum of Natural History New York, New York
We were challenged by #Strike4BlackLives and #ShutdownSTEM to spend June 10, 2020 working on ways to further support People of color (POC) in STEM. Reading #BlackIntheIvory tweets about POC experiences in STEM inspired us to take action. As a group, we strive to increase access to STEM education for POC, young and old. Access to education can create long-lasting and far-reaching effects to communities.
Recently, statistics about the drastically low number of POC in Ecology and Evolution were highlighted (Graves, 2019). Similarly, for entomology we know that the numbers of POC graduate students is low, compared to the number of POC in the general population; for example, the NSF reports that of graduate students in entomology/parasitology, only 2.3% are Black, 4.8% are Hispanic/Latinx, and 0.17% are Pacific Islander (NSF Demographic Report, 2016; 16% of entomology graduate students are POC). For graduate students in general, the cost of membership to scientific organizations may be a barrier to participation.
Entomologists of Color strives to close this gap by providing people of color with free memberships to various entomological societies, making participation, scientific communication and outreach more inclusive to POC. Membership to scientific societies allows participation in networking events, provides access to scientific publications and other member-restricted scientific content, and reduced meeting costs. All necessary tools for a successful career.
