Jessica Wade is a researcher at Imperial College London, well known for her work in chiral materials and Raman spectroscopy. She also has written a children's book on nanotechnology called Nano. In the public eye, she is best of all known for having written over 1900 Wikipedia entries as of February 2023. Why is it that women in history were so successful in astronomy so early on compared to other fields? That is such a hard question and a fascinating one.
Jessica Wade is a physicist at Imperial College London who, while spending her day working on special carbon-based materials that can be used as semiconductors, has spent her nights writing nearly 2,000 Wikipedia entries about underrepresented figures in science. That, along with numerous other forms of public engagement—including writing a children’s book about nanotechnology—is all in an effort to actually do something productive to correct gender and racial biases in STEM.
She joined Tyler to discuss if there are any useful gender stereotypes in science, distinguishing between productive and unproductive ways to encourage women in science, whether science Twitter is biased toward men, how AI will affect gender participation gaps, how Wikipedia should be improved, how she judges the effectiveness of her Wikipedia articles, how she’d improve science funding, her work on chiral materials and its near-term applications, whether writing a kid’s science book should be rewarded in academia, what she learned spending a year studying art in Florence, what she’ll do next, and more.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video.
Recorded February 21st, 2023
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