REPRESENTATION MATTERS
DR. ROGER ARLINER YOUNG ZOOLOGIST
She earned her doctorate after years of juggling research and teaching with the burden of caring for her invalid mother. She studied hydration and dehydration of living cells.
Long before Nichelle Nichols took off on the USS Enterprise as Lt. Nyota Uhura in 1966, women were succeeding in science, but Nichols was the most visible Black woman on television during the Civil Rights era. When she planned to leave Star Trek for a role on Broadway, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. warned her a blonde could be cast in her spot and it would be like she was never there. So she stayed as a beacon for fans and sang after the series ended. Dr. Mae Jemison says Nichols inspired her to become an astronaut.
Lt. Nyota Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) was a Linguistics Cryptographer Philologist on Star Trek. Dr. Mae Jemison appeared in an episode of The Next Generation in 1993. In Renegades: Ominara, Nichols plays the title character, a pirate and head of the underworld. Loren Lott plays the younger version of Ominara. Nichols tells her on TikTok she is also just here for the snacks.
DR. RUTH ELLA MOORE BACTERIOLOGIST
Born in 1903, she was a pioneer for Black female scientists. Moore conducted studies on blood groups and enterobacteriacea.
1969: Margaret Hamilton stands next to the code that got us to the moon. Hamilton was the lead Apollo flight software designer. 2019: Dr. Katie Bouman poses with the 5 petabytes (5,000,000 gigabytes) of data that got us to the black hole. Dr. Bouman developed the algorithm to make the first picture of a black hole.
Diana Trujillo who traveled to the U.S. with no English and just $300 in her pocket just put a rover on Mars. “As a little girl, I saw the women in my family give up a lot. It gave me the tenacity that I needed to say I’m not going to give up on my dream. I want to be out there looking back in, showing my family that women have value, that women matter.”
DR. SHIRLEY ANN JACKSON PHYSICIST
The former Chair of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board (2014-2017) has a lifetime of achievements in scientific research, education, and senior statesman-like contributions to public policy.
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Art Department Weekly • March 23, 2021
SEEMS APPROPRIATE
Our gaming issue didn’t get into the abuse female gamers receive online, so an influencer ad for Tampax that emphasizes comfort caught my attention. Most posts from @krystalogytv feature sexy costumes, but this story emphasized all the ways to game and be comfortable—partly inclusive, partly fantasy.
