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Jessica Wade Makes Wikipedia bios For Unknown Women Scientists

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www.today.com

When Jessica Wade was invited to Buckingham Palace to receive the prestigious British Empire Medal, she stood out for being a young woman honored for her contributions to science.

Ironically, she was being honored for trying to change that.

The 33-year-old London-based physicist has become something of a phenomenon herself — both an irresistible force and immoveable object — in her very personal campaign to bring more girls to study and work in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).

Wade has written more than 1,600 Wikipedia entries for long-ignored women scientists, and she has firm beliefs on ideas on how to support girls interested in the field.

This is some fantastic work by Wade, cataloging the many forgotten women who’ve helped move science forward. The one issue she ran into was that the women being profiled weren’t well known. Thing is, that’s the problem: they should be better known.

There’s a phenomenon called the Matilda effect which is a bias against crediting women for their achievements. It even includes Theano of Crotone who worked with Pythagoras on various math things.

I like how she emphasizes that women need support rather than being funneled into the field. Through mentorship, coaching as well as recognition, we can uplift women in STEM such that they become people in STEM who happen to be women.