By Leah Volpe
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
In the constantly changing fields of science and technology, it is important to recognize the power of diversity, a NASA expert said during a discussion at Towson University on March 13.
Heather Valeah Graham, who has worked with the top scientists at the NASA Goddard Space and Flight Center, spoke in front of a group of approximately 20 students and faculty in the Cook Library at Towson.
What was intended to be a presentation on the No. 1 New York Times bestseller “Hidden Figures” turned into a discussion about the lack of representation of women in the STEM field and what kind of impact this has for the industry’s future.
“Science is an iceberg. Most science is done by large groups of people under the surface towards a single goal,” Graham said. “There is a lot of research that shows that if you have diverse groups of people you do better problem solving.”
The women who worked at NASA in the 1950s were able to rise above sexism and achieve great things, even though they grew up at a time when women were not encouraged to seek an education and enter the workforce, Graham said.
Women of color, who made up approximately 20 percent of the computer programmers during that period, had a harder time fighting for their careers in the NASA program, Graham said.
With more knowledge as skilled mathematicians with math and science degrees, African American women at NASA were receiving the same salary of $1,440 as white women, who were mainly math teachers with a degree in education.
Engineering was strictly a man’s job at the time, Graham said, partly because there were no engineering programs at women’s colleges. Less than 1 percent of engineers in America were African American and 10 percent of that number of engineers were employed at NACA, now known as NASA, according to Graham’s research.
Graham noted that this workplace environment was distinct from other government agencies in America. This meant there were African American working professionals in the field before the widely known Brown v. Board of Education, a landmark Supreme Court case declaring school segregation to be unconstitutional.
“We can recognize that computing [computer programming] was set back significantly in those years, 1960s, 1970s, because of that process of exclusion of women,” said Carissa Tomlinson, the organizer of the event and Towson University’s library staff.
By the late ‘50s, NASA’s population of female mathematicians made a steady decline and to this day has not made any advancements towards diversity, Graham said.
“There is a historic trend of, as soon as something becomes lucrative or vaguely, in any way, scientific, it becomes a man’s work.” Graham said.
Graham said that of the 961 scientists who worked on 26 planetary projects over the years, 865 were male and 96 were female.
Alexander Storrs, a Towson associate professor of physics and astronomy, said during the discussion that there is a lack of diversity among Towson’s staff.
“It’s certainly one the frustrations, that we would very much like to diversity the professoriate,” Storrs said. “And yet it is very difficult to get qualified applicants who aren’t children of other professors.”
Graham said one problem is that many people want to work with friends or colleagues they already know. This trend may have effects on the future of women in the industry and the female youth who plan to pursue a STEM career, she said.
“If you’ve never seen anyone like you in a job, it’s pretty easy to believe that job is not for you,” said Graham.