What It’s Like…being Black in STEM (a 2021 update)

November 5th, 2019.

It’s been two years since I began this blog and boy has my life changed. Who knew that within five months from when this blog had started, I would be completing the last year and a half of my college experience from my childhood bedroom in Chicago because of a global pandemic. But more importantly, who knew that the girl who wrote a blog post capturing her hopelessness about ever being successful and capable enough to be in STEM, would graduate with a biology minor, be days away from presenting her research at a national conference, potentially being an author on a paper and move over 2000 miles to join an amazing immunology lab and can now do so much more than pipette PBS.

But in 2021, what is my perspective about being Black in STEM? How much has my experience and my perceptions about being Black in STEM changed?

The short answer to those questions is this: I love being in STEM. I love being Black. But being Black in STEM, despite accomplishing things that two years ago I could’ve never dreamt I could accomplish, is still really difficult.

In my time at UChicago, I only had one Black Professor who was in science. In almost all of the immunology courses I took at UChicago (6 Courses in total and all of which included graduate students), I was always the sole Black student or Black female student within a class of 20-50 people. When I was looking for an immunology lab to join after leaving my first lab in 2020, there was not one one black male/female or non-binary individual listed as faculty in UChicago’s Immunology Department. Now, as a junior specialist at UCSF, as far as I know, there is only one Black PI in the immunology department.

This fact I mentioned in my first blog remains true:

A study conducted by Paula S Ramos, Andrew M Shedlock, and Carl D Langefeld determined that Autoimmune Disorders (ADs) “exhibit gender and ethnic disparities” and that African Americans are at higher risk than European Americans for “systemic lupus erythematosus and scleroderma (systemic sclerosis), which they tend to develop earlier in life and experience more severe disease”. Many other ADs or immune-based disorders have a higher prevalence in minority communities, and higher in women as well. This is the field I want to enter. A field where many of the diseases that I would want to study—and hopefully with an amazing team and history behind me, be able to cure—affect a demographic of people that look like me. 

I still want to become a physician-scientist, despite the fact Black women comprise 1.6% of clinical and nonclinical faculty at academic medical centers (AMCs) compared with 22.9% for White women, and despite the fact that less 35 Black students matriculate into one of the 90 MD-PhD programs across the United States every year.

I want to become a physician-scientist, despite being a first generation, low income (FGLI) Black Women in STEM amongst other important identities. But this journey, this dream and this goal has been extremely difficult, to say the least. I wrote that blog post nearly two years ago because once again, I had an experience that made me feel like no matter how hard I worked, trying to become a part of science was impossible and that it was just a dream I was wasting my time with.

I was a creative writing major and I was doing really well in my major and I love being a writer, and two Novembers ago, I was ready to finish that immunobiology course and officially walk away from science forever. But then I remembered when I attempted to do the same a year prior and reality set in: that I could never walk away from science. In my 2nd year of college, I took a break from taking science classes and focused on all my other non-science recs. When I looked back at that time in November 2019 and now in November 2021 as well, I remember feeling like a part of me was missing. I wasn’t satisfied and in many ways, I still found a way to sneak my love for science into my creative writing courses and other pre-reqs that I was doing because science needed to be a part of my life.

So with the same passion (and advice that I got from a really great friend) that drove me back to science, doing immunology research for the first time in summer of 2019, and to pursue a biology minor, I continued the class that started this blog and ended up with a B- in that class. The next quarter, I took my second immunology class that I ended with a B—and my last ever in-person UChicago class as well. For the last year and a half of my undergraduate education, I continued taking immunology classes and even a neuroscience class and fell in love with science all over again—and grew my caffeine intake to a very very bad level to where I can still fall asleep at 10pm even if I drank coffee at 9:30 pm(whoops).

Then 2020.

Yeah, what a year that was huh. Well, that year and everything that happened very much reamplified why I began this blog and I think on a larger scale, the emotions and struggles that I had and still have about being Black in STEM. I became even more aware about how much of a minority I was in science. I felt my heart break because I related to so many of the stories of racism and abuse Black scientists and Black people who gave up on becoming a scientist experienced at secondary and post-secondary institutions (and a very important reminder that the stories that were being told on social media were the stories people felt SAFE ENOUGH to share). Then the worst reminder that defined being Black in the US and across the world: that even during a global pandemic, you can still be a victim of police brutality and racial injustice via our healthcare system.

Being Black during 2020 was a hard time. There was this collective discussion that the world had to have with itself, that science in particular had to have and to some extent, that was what we left 2020 with. A discussion. But to another extent, but really efforts again lead by Black Scientists, was the refusal to let years of trauma that had finally became mainstream die. That Black scientists do exist and we deserve to exist and will make our own red carpet to walk on.

In 2020, I discovered that Black Immunologists do exist and boy are there a lot of us. In May of 2020, I officially joined the Basu Lab at UChicago and for the first time in so long, found a place in science where I felt that I did not have the pressure of representing all Black people on my shoulders. I found myself in an environment that allowed me to make mistakes on the names of particular markers, to ask questions about how does IHC Staining work and slowly learn how to code using R to conduct computational based research. I met my first Black immunologist in the Basu Lab and got to work with her on an amazing project. Later that year, I saw the hashtag #BlackinImmuno on twitter and saw an amazing organization that was co-founded by so many amazing people (and soon enough, a co-founder of Black in Immuno who I now get to call a fellow lab mate- Hi Joel) and got to take part of their conference where I got to interact and meet so many Black immunologists. At the end of the conference, I remember tearing up because for so long, I felt so lonely in science and concerned about how lonely my science career was going to be because I never found Black MDs, MD-PhDs or PhDs at my University nor online. Yet, here we were, in a space that highlighted the amazing accomplishments of Black Immunologists, and with the rise of #BlackinImmuno, #BlackinCancer, #BlackinPhysics, #AfricansinSTEM and so many more campaigns and organizations that grew in this time truly highlighted that Black scientists are not anomalies. We’re a minority but we not rare or absent. Black scientists do exist, we do matter and we deserve to be at the table, own our own labs, and deserve to be treated with the same respect that other scientists treat each other.

Side note: I’ve also seen the way other scientists treat each other and um, hey, science community, can we raise the bar a bit and just be kinder and emphatic? Good? Great, thanks.

After the #BlackinImmuno Conference, I knew that I was going to stay in science and continue towards my goal of getting an MD-PhD in Immunology, and even though that journey will be difficult, I wasn't going to be alone. And throughout my journey in STEM, I’ve never really been alone. I’ve been so blessed to have so many friends who have gave me advice over the years, spent extra hours tutoring me in biology and chemistry, and even helped me find out about UCSF’s PROPEL Post-Bacc Program, a program that brought me to the Spitzer Lab and has allowed me see growth myself so quickly that the dream of being a scientist might not just be dream, but a reality.

I’ve grown from the girl I was back in November 2019. I’ve grown from when I first started college back in September of 2017. That doesn’t mean that I still don’t question whether or not I belong in STEM. I still do sometimes. It’s hard to not look at those statistics and numbers, it’s hard recounting the way I was treated because I’m a Black FGLI student and not question whether or not I belong. It’s really hard not being scared that with all of the things that I’ve learned, might not be enough to get me to a white coat ceremony.

But even when the question of “Will I make it” clouds my mind, I think for the first time in a very long time, instead of the answering being no, it’s a maybe and a hopefully.

Yeah, we’re still working on confidence and fighting my imposter syndrome but hey, growth is slow and progressive.

Being Black in Science, in any field, can and is very lonely. But when I look back at my life thus far, I’m truly so lucky to have had so many amazing advisors, mentors, friends, family and even random people on the internet who believe in me and have helped me get to this point in my life. I thank all of those people for supporting me, believing in me, and for organizations like BlackinImmuno who remind me that I do belong in science.

At age 5, I said I wanted to become a doctor, a judge and a lawyer. At 22, I’m on my way to becoming a physician-scientist, while also being a writer, and doing all that I can to inspire others that being Black in STEM, despite its difficulties, can be a reality. A little bit different to what I had planned for my life 17 years ago, though I’d like to think five year old Naa would look at me and be proud. I know I am.