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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
Prescod-Weinstein at "Becoming Interplanetary" talk at the Library of Congress, 2018
Born
El Sereno, Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Alma mater
Known forPolitical activism, cosmology
RelativesMargaret Prescod (mother), Selma James (grandmother)
AwardsPhi Beta Kappa Award for Science[1]
Scientific career
Fields
  • Cosmology
  • Particle physics
Institutions
Websitechanda.science

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein (born c. 1982)[2][3] is an American theoretical cosmologist and particle physicist at the University of New Hampshire. She is also an advocate of increasing diversity in science.

Early life and education

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Prescod-Weinstein was born in Los Angeles, California, where she grew up in the eastside neighborhood of El Sereno and attended schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District.[4][5] She is of Barbadian descent on her mother's side and Russian-Jewish and Ukrainian-Jewish descent on her father's side.[6] She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in physics and astronomy at Harvard College in 2003. Her thesis, "A study of winds in active galactic nuclei", was completed under the supervision of Martin Elvis.[7] She then earned a master's degree in astronomy in 2005 at the University of California, Santa Cruz, working with Anthony Aguirre.[8] In 2006, Prescod-Weinstein changed research directions and ultimately moved to the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics to work with Lee Smolin. In 2010, Prescod-Weinstein completed her doctoral dissertation, titled "Cosmic acceleration as Quantum Gravity Phenomenology",[9] under the supervision of Lee Smolin and Niayesh Afshordi at the University of Waterloo, while conducting her research at the Perimeter Institute.[4][10]

Research

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Prescod-Weinstein's research has focused on various topics in cosmology and theoretical physics, including the axion as a dark matter candidate,[11] inflation, and classical and quantum fields in the early universe.[12]

From 2004 to 2007, she was a named National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow.[13]

After earning her Ph.D., she became a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow in the Observational Cosmology Lab at Goddard Space Flight Center.[13][14] In 2011, she won a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she was jointly appointed to the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research and the department of physics.[13][14][15] At MIT, Prescod-Weinstein worked in Alan Guth's group in the Center for Theoretical Physics.[16] In 2016, Prescod-Weinstein worked as Ann Nelson's postdoc at the University of Washington.[17] [18]

In 2016, she became the principal investigator on a $100,522 FQXI grant to study "Epistemological Schemata of Astro | Physics: A Reconstruction of Observers" seeking to answer questions regarding how to re-frame who is an "observer", to acknowledge those existing outside of the European Enlightenment framework, and how that might change knowledge production in science.[19]

She is working on the NASA STROBE-X experiment.[20]

Since 2019, she has been a faculty member in physics and astronomy, as well as in women's and gender studies at the University of New Hampshire. She earned tenure in 2023.[21]

Awards

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Prescod-Weinstein earned the Barbados House Canada Inc. Gordon C Bynoe Scholarship in 2007.[13] In 2013 she won the MIT "Infinite Kilometer Award".[22] In March 2017, Prescod-Weinstein won the LGBT+ Physicists Acknowledgement of Excellence Award "For Years of Dedicated Effort in Changing Physics Culture to be More Inclusive and Understanding Toward All Marginalised Peoples".[23]

She was recognized by Essence Magazine as one of 15 Black Women Who are Paving the Way in STEM and Breaking Barriers.[24] Prescod-Weinstein's personal story and ideas have been featured in several venues, including Huffington Post, Gizmodo, Nylon, and the African-American Intellectual History Society.[25] She was named in Nature's list of "ten people who helped shape science in 2020" in January 2021,[26] as well as one of VICE Motherboard's "Humans2020," "honoring scientists, engineers, and visionaries who are changing the world for the better."[27]

She received the 2021 Edward A. Bouchet Award from the American Physical Society, in recognition "For contributions to theoretical cosmology and particle physics, ranging from axion physics to models of inflation to alternative models of dark energy, for tireless efforts in increasing inclusivity in physics, and for co-creating the Particles for Justice movement."[28]

Her 2021 work The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred (ISBN 978-1541724709)[29] won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in the Science & Technology category,[30] and in 2022 it received a PEN Oakland – Josephine Miles Literary Award.

Activism

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Prescod-Weinstein is an advocate[31] for increasing the diversity within science by considering intersectionality[32] and proper celebration of the underrepresented groups who contribute to scientific knowledge production.[33] She has been a member of the executive committee of the National Society of Black Physicists.[34] In 2017 she was a plenary speaker at the Women in Physics Canada meeting.[35]

Prescod-Weinstein has contributed popular science articles for Scientific American,[36][37] Slate,[38] American Scientist, Nature Astronomy,[39] Bitch media,[40] and Physics World.[41] She is on the Book Review Board of Physics Today and was editor-in-chief of The Offing.[42] The American Physical Society described her as a "vocal presence on Twitter".[43] Prescod-Weinstein maintains a Decolonising Science Reading List.[44] She is a monthly contributor to New Scientist, with a column titled "Field Notes from Space-time,"[45] and a contributing columnist for Physics World.[46] She was a founding member of the American Astronomical Society Committee for Sexual Orientation and Gender Minorities in Astronomy.[25] Prescod-Weinstein has in the past also been a member of the Jewish Voice for Peace Academic Advisory council.[25]

In October 2018, Prescod-Weinstein was one of 18 authors of a public letter titled "High Energy Physics Community Statement" hosted on a website called "Particles for Justice." The statement condemned Alessandro Strumia's controversial claim at CERN's first Workshop on High Energy Theory and Gender that male scientists were victims of discrimination.[47][48][49] Within a day of publication, nearly 1,600 academics had signed the letter in support.[48] As of October 13, it had received nearly 4,000 signatures, including those of John Ellis, Howard Georgi and David Gross.[50][51]

In June 2020, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, Prescod-Weinstein, Brian Nord, and the Particles for Justice group organized a global "Strike for Black Lives".[47] Prescod-Weinstein authored a note on the Particles for Justice page titled "What I wanted when I called for a Strike for Black Lives". On June 10, the day of the strike, over 4,500 academics pledged participation in the strike. Additionally, numerous organizations, including Nature, the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Institute of Physics supported and/or participated in the strike.[52]

In March 2021, along with Nord, Lucianne Walkowicz, and Sarah Tuttle, Prescod-Weinstein co-authored an opinion piece in Scientific American calling for the James Webb Space Telescope to be renamed, citing Webb's promotion of psychological warfare as a cold war tool, as well as citing archival evidence indicating that Webb was a supervisor to State Department staff enforcing the Truman Administration's policy of purging LGBT individuals from the workplace, and had also directly participated in meetings with Senators during which he personally handed over a homophobic memorandum.[53] The opinion argued that as someone in management, Webb bore responsibility for policies of purging LGBT employees from agencies enacted under his leadership.[54] Prescod-Weinstein, Walkowicz, Nord, and Tuttle also started a petition, signed by more than 1,700 people, a majority of the signatories astronomers or those in related fields.[55] These activities were part of a larger movement to rename the James Webb Space Telescope, including by the JustSpace Alliance, which produced a documentary on the issue.[56] In 2022, NASA released a report of an investigation, in response to Prescod-Weinstein's claims,[57] based on an examination of more than 50,000 documents. The report found "no available evidence directly links Webb to any actions or follow-up related to the firing of individuals for their sexual orientation".[58][59]

In December 2022, The New York Times published an article by Michael Powell suggesting that Prescod-Weinstein employed false ad hominem attacks in an attempt to discredit Hakeem Oluseyi, an astrophysicist who did initial research debunking the claims against James Webb.[60][61]

Prescod-Weinstein worked with two research assistants for two years to form a database of all professional publications by Black women with PhDs in physics-related disciplines, which was released in December 2022.[62] She said she drew inspiration from the Cite Black Women movement on social media.[62]

Personal life

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Prescod-Weinstein is queer and agender.[5] Her husband is a lawyer.[3] She is the daughter of author and activist Margaret Prescod and labor activist Sam Weinstein.[2] Through her father she is a granddaughter of feminist Selma James and the step-granddaughter of Trinidadian Marxist writer and historian C. L. R. James.[63][64]

References

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  1. ^ "2022 Book Awards Winners".
  2. ^ a b Hendrix, Kathleen (October 16, 1986). "Passionate Pursuer's Crusade Against the South Side Slayer : Margaret Prescod Trying to Raise Community Awareness on the Streets of South-Central L.A. . . . and Beverly Hills". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved February 16, 2024.
  3. ^ a b Zierler, David (November 10, 2020). "Interview of Chanda Prescod-Weinstein". American Institute of Physics. Retrieved January 26, 2022.
  4. ^ a b Prescod-Weinstein, Chanda Rosalyn Sojourner (2010). Cosmic Acceleration As Quantum Gravity Phenomenology. University of Waterloo. Bibcode:2010PhDT.......299P.
  5. ^ a b Pitney, Nico (June 24, 2015). "Meet The 63rd Black Woman In American History With A Physics Ph.D." HuffPost UK. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  6. ^ Prescod-Weinstein, Chanda (July 29, 2015). "Hold Fast to Blackness". Medium. Archived from the original on September 10, 2015. Retrieved April 8, 2019.
  7. ^ Prescod-Weinstein, Chanda (2023). A study of winds in active galactic nuclei /. Harvard University.
  8. ^ "Guest Post: Chanda". backreaction.blogspot.co.uk. January 21, 2007. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  9. ^ "Cosmic acceleration as quantum gravity phenomenology", WorldCat.
  10. ^ "Chanda Prescod-Weinstein | Perimeter Institute". www.perimeterinstitute.ca. Archived from the original on November 22, 2018. Retrieved February 15, 2018.
  11. ^ Nowogrodzki, Anna (December 7, 2015). "Tiny dark matter stars would harbour particles that act as one". New Scientist. Retrieved February 9, 2018.
  12. ^ "Meet a Scientist - Chanda Prescod-Weinstein | Perimeter Institute". www.perimeterinstitute.ca. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  13. ^ a b c d "Curriculum Vitae". Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, PhD. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  14. ^ a b "Chanda Prescod-Weinstein | Perimeter Institute". www.perimeterinstitute.ca. Archived from the original on November 22, 2018. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  15. ^ "Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, Physics – Martin Luther King Jr. Scholars". mlkscholars.mit.edu. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  16. ^ "How I Got Here". Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, PhD. Archived from the original on March 13, 2019. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  17. ^ Prescod-Weinstein, Chanda (August 22, 2019). "Ann Nelson Took On the Biggest Problems in Physics". Quanta Magazine. Archived from the original on August 26, 2019.
  18. ^ "Curriculum Vitae". Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, PhD.
  19. ^ "FQXi - Foundational Questions Institute". fqxi.org. Retrieved February 28, 2018.
  20. ^ "Making a Universe with Axions | Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC)". kipac.stanford.edu. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  21. ^ Nittle, Nadra (July 28, 2023). "Fewer than 20 Black women physicists in the U.S. have earned tenure. This scholar just joined the club". The 19th. Retrieved July 28, 2023.
  22. ^ "MIT School of Science". science.mit.edu. Archived from the original on March 6, 2018. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  23. ^ "lgbt+physicists - Acknowledgement of Excellence Awards". lgbtphysicists.org. Archived from the original on February 15, 2018. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  24. ^ "Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, PhD". Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, PhD. Retrieved November 21, 2019.
  25. ^ a b c "My Science". Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, PhD. Retrieved November 21, 2019.
  26. ^ "Nature's 10: ten people who helped shape science in 2020". Nature. December 15, 2020. Retrieved January 5, 2021.
  27. ^ "The Physicist and Social Theorist Fighting for Equality in Science". www.vice.com. December 4, 2020. Retrieved February 3, 2021.
  28. ^ "Awards". American Physical Society. Retrieved October 7, 2020.
  29. ^ "Briefly Noted (Published in the print edition of the April 5, 2021, issue, page 58.)". The New Yorker. March 29, 2021. Retrieved April 30, 2023.
  30. ^ "Los Angeles Times Book Prizes Winners Announced". Los Angeles Times. April 22, 2022.
  31. ^ Sokol, Joshua (August 23, 2016). "Why the Universe Needs More Black and Latino Astronomers". Smithsonian. Retrieved February 9, 2018.
  32. ^ Kaplan, Sarah (July 11, 2017). "Women of color face staggering harassment in space science". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved February 9, 2018.
  33. ^ Bradford., Edwards, Sue (December 6, 2016). Hidden Human Computers: The Black Women of NASA. New York: ABDO Digital. ISBN 978-1680797404. OCLC 1003680291.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  34. ^ "Guest Post: Chanda Prescod-Weinstein". Sean Carroll. October 22, 2006. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  35. ^ Institute for Quantum Computing (August 15, 2017). "Chanda Prescod-Weinstein - Fields of Cosmological Dreams". YouTube. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  36. ^ "Stories by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein". Scientific American. Retrieved August 22, 2022.
  37. ^ Prescod-Weinstein, Chanda (August 14, 2017). "Scientists Must Challenge What Makes Studies Scientific". American Scientist. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  38. ^ Prescod-Weinstein, Chanda (August 9, 2017). "Stop Equating 'Science' With Truth". Slate. ISSN 1091-2339. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  39. ^ Prescod-Weinstein, Chanda (2017). "Curiosity and the end of discrimination". Nature Astronomy. 1 (6): 0145. Bibcode:2017NatAs...1E.145P. doi:10.1038/s41550-017-0145. ISSN 2397-3366.
  40. ^ "Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein | Bitch Media". www.bitchmedia.org. Archived from the original on March 27, 2019. Retrieved February 8, 2018.
  41. ^ "Writing for Popular Media". Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, PhD. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  42. ^ Thompson, Rachel (January 9, 2017). "#LitMagLove: The Offing's Chanda Prescod-Weinstein | Room Magazine". roommagazine.com. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  43. ^ "APS Member Chanda Prescod-Weinstein Gets the HuffPo Treatment". www.aps.org. July 6, 2015. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  44. ^ Prescod-Weinstein, Chanda (April 25, 2015). "Decolonising Science Reading List". Chanda Prescod-Weinstein. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  45. ^ "Chanda Prescod-Weinstein". New Scientist. Retrieved June 14, 2020.
  46. ^ Banks, Michael (November 3, 2020). "Reflecting the community: Physics World's new contributing columnists expand our team of opinion writers". Physics World. Retrieved February 3, 2021.
  47. ^ a b "Home". Particles for Justice. Retrieved October 12, 2018.
  48. ^ a b Chen, Sophia (October 5, 2018). "Physicists Condemn Sexism Through 'Particles for Justice'". WIRED. Retrieved October 12, 2018.
  49. ^ Banks, Michael (October 8, 2018). "Thousands of physicists sign letter condemning 'disgraceful' Alessandro Strumia gender talk". Physics World. Retrieved October 12, 2018.
  50. ^ "Scientists condemn professor's 'morally reprehensible' talk". BBC News. October 6, 2018. Retrieved March 3, 2021.
  51. ^ Mandelbaum, Ryan F. (October 5, 2018). "More Than 200 Physicists Denounce Sexist Lecture at CERN". Gizmodo. Retrieved March 3, 2021.
  52. ^ Burke, Lilah (June 11, 2020). "Scientists strike for black lives, a more inclusive academia". www.insidehighered.com. Retrieved March 3, 2021.
  53. ^ Prescod-Weinstein, Chanda; Tuttle, Sarah; Walkowicz, Lucianne; Nord, Brian (March 1, 2021). "The James Webb Space Telescope Needs to Be Renamed". Scientific American. Retrieved February 2, 2023.
  54. ^ Overbye, Dennis (October 20, 2021). "The Webb Telescope's Latest Stumbling Block: Its Name". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 6, 2023.
  55. ^ "Rename the James Webb Space Telescope". Google Docs. Retrieved February 6, 2023.
  56. ^ Behind the Name: James Webb Space Telescope, July 5, 2022, retrieved February 6, 2023
  57. ^ Fisher, Alise (November 18, 2022). "NASA Shares James Webb History Report". NASA. Archived from the original on November 24, 2022. Retrieved November 25, 2022.
  58. ^ Odom, Brian C. "NASA Historical Investigation into James E. Webb's Relationship to the Lavender Scare. Final Report" (PDF). nasa.gov. NASA. Archived (PDF) from the original on November 24, 2022. Retrieved November 25, 2022.
  59. ^ Witze, Alexandra (November 18, 2022). "NASA really, really won't rename Webb telescope despite community pushback". Nature. doi:10.1038/d41586-022-03787-1. PMID 36400961. S2CID 253671586. Archived from the original on November 22, 2022. Retrieved November 21, 2022.
  60. ^ "How Naming the James Webb Telescope Turned Into a Fight Over Homophobia". New York Times. December 19, 2022.
  61. ^ "Was NASA's Historic Leader James Webb a Bigot?". December 25, 2022.
  62. ^ a b Council, Jared (January 16, 2023). "Boosting Black Women In Physics With The Aim Of Making A Big Bang In Business". Forbes. Retrieved February 2, 2023.
  63. ^ Childs, Greg (August 29, 2016). "Black Intellectual History and STEM: A Conversation with Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein". Black Perspectives. African American Intellectual History Society. Retrieved June 14, 2020.
  64. ^ Cheney-Rice, Zak (January 10, 2023). "A Cosmologist's Case for Staying Put on Earth". Intelligencer. Retrieved February 16, 2024.
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