The sciences are a field that are underrepresented by women.  Women of color have even less of a presence.  That’s why it is awesome that Jedidah Isler has become the first black woman to graduate Yale with a PhD in Astronomy:

Jedidah Isler was one of the first three students to be accepted into the Fisk-Vanderbilt Bridge Program. Nine years later, she is the first black woman in the history of Yale University — a place still struggling to diversify — to earn a Ph.D. in astronomy.

But she didn’t always feel welcome at Yale, and her story demonstrates how far there still is to go. Isler says that during her first year, she and a group of about a dozen fellow graduate students went out to an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant.

“So there are plates everywhere,” she recalls. Everyone seemed full and content. “And all of a sudden, this kid in my class hands me a pile of his dirty plates” — the student is a white male — “he just kind of hands them to me and says, ‘Here, now go and do what you’re really here to do.'”

Isler, whose research on the energy emitted by particles that move out of supermassive black holes at velocities very near the speed of light was just published in Astrophysical Journal, remembers feeling devastated. “Not just because it happened,” she says, “but because it kind of hamstrung me for what I could say. … If I get really mad, then I’m the angry black woman. But if I give too much concession, then I’m sort of too conciliatory, and it was just weird. It let me know that this is not a safe space for me. … It took me years to get past that.”

Now a postdoctoral fellow at Syracuse University, Isler says she hopes to emulate Stassun, whom she says “still is my most involved mentor,” despite her choosing Yale over Vanderbilt for her Ph.D. “Absolutely, it’s of utmost importance to me that I do my part in breaking down barriers,” she says. “If I don’t, who will?”

 

(via FeministBatwoman)