Featured image above is from Empower Magazine article, “Overcoming the rarity of underserved minorities in STEM”.
In this episode of These Vibes Are Too Cosmic I speak with Simone Sneed, board liaison at the Environmental Defense Fund and professor at NYU in Civic and Social Organization, on the troubling statistics of women and minorities in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields. We get deep in to this topic, speculating on how it came about and what can be done about it as well as current initiatives working towards getting more minorities in STEM fields. Additionally, we discuss the analogous trends in arts and business/non-profits.
Simone Sneed also writes for many news sources, including the Huffington Post. One of my favorite of her pieces is on “What the Shutdown Taught Us About Women’s Leadership.”
At the end of the show, I jump back on the mic to mention a recent press release from the president of the American Astronomical Society in response to a new study claiming that the GRE physics exam shows little correlation with success in the field and that the scores appear to be systematically biased against women and minorities. Then I briefly mention some new results out of the Large Hadron Collider! More on that in the next show.
Some extra resources:
- We played an excerpt from the TED talk by Jedida Isler: The Untapped Genius that could change science for the better.
- “Why so few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics” report from the American Association of University Women.
- Landmark Yale study on gender bias in faculty appointments in the sciences.
- NY Times article on “Why there are there still so few women in science?”
- Report by the US Census on the “Disparities in STEM employment by Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin”
Playlist for the show:
| Artist | Song | Album | Label |
| LCD Soundsystem | Watch the tapes | Sound of Silver | Parlaphone |
| Intro (3:47 – 9:17) | |||
| Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers | New England | Roadrunner: The Berserkeley Collection | Sanctuary |
| New Madrid | Forest Gum | Sunswimmer | New West Records |
| Elia Fleta | Tu vida cambio | Chicas! Spanish female singers vol 2 1963-78 | vampisoul |
| Downtown Boys | Montro | Full Communism | Don Giovanni |
| Part 1: Simone Sneed (20:55 – 36:51) | |||
| Lou Reed | Walk on the wild side | Transformer | RCA |
| Carseat Headrest | Something soon | Teens of Style | Matador |
| Happyness | Refrigerate Her | Weird little birthday | Bar none records |
| Kim Jung Mi | Haenim | Now | Lion Productions |
| Part 2: Simone Sneed (52:21 – 1:16:00) | |||
| Shamir | Youth | Ratchet | XL Recordings |
| tUnE-yArDs | Bizness | W H O K I L L | 4AD Ltd |
| Little Dragon | Klapp Klapp | Nabuma Rubberband | Seven Four Entertainment |
| Leikeli47 | Heard em say | Leikeli47 | Hard Cover |
| Part 3: Simone Sneed (1:31:30 – 1:37:06) | |||
| G.L.O.S.S. | Outcast Stomp | DEMO | s/r |
| Girl Band | Um Bongo | Holding Hands with Jaime | Rough Trade |
| Skinny Girl Diet | Dimethyltryptamine | Skinny Girl Diet | Fiasco Recordings |
| The Distillers | Drain the blood | Drain the blood | Reprise Records |
| Mic Break (1:49:45 – 1:53:06) | |||
| Sales | Renee | Sales EP | s/r |
| Outro: Science news! (1:56:00 – 1:59:00) | The AAS/pGRE and the new LHC findings | ||
These Vibes Are Too Cosmic 