This blog was originally created while I was MIT’s inaugural Institute Community and Equity Officer during 2013-2018 as a way to inform the MIT community about the activities of that new office. Although I am no longer the ICEO nor am I affiliated with that office, my mission as a faculty member remains aligned with the one I created originally for the ICEO: to advance a respectful and caring community that embraces diversity and empowers everyone to learn and do their best. I do so with a perspective of equity-mindedness, which makes explicit the past and present systemic oppression afflicting society and institutions.

If you came here seeking the ICEO, please go to the ICEO website, diversity.mit.edu.

This blog will focus on exploring how institutions, including universities and the STEM professions at large, can create more equitable and inclusive systems to dismantle the structural racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression plaguing them today. Changing the culture is both easier and much harder than most people realize. Easier because culture is a social construct, which implies that invariably it changes. Understanding how that happens can point the way to promising practices; this is the role of the sociologist. Harder because culture is intangible, impossible to measure in a way that most scientists and engineers recognize, and is deeply rooted in value systems. For culture change, activism is a more effective tool than science.

Trained originally as an astrophysicist, I am a scholar-activist for equity and inclusion in the physical sciences. I teach in Women’s and Gender Studies as well as in Physics. More information about me can be found at my website. My publications and talks on equity and inclusion, along with related materials, can be found here.