February is African American History Month

This week’s blog post is in honor of African American History Month and will be in similar format to our post back in November for Native American Heritage Month. Our SACNAS chapter is incredibly diverse, and unlike many other chapters across the country, we have several African American members. These next few posts will feature the story and experiences of one of these members, in following with the online community’s embrace of personal storytelling as a form of the expression of the diversity in sciences, such as #iamscience and This is What a Scientist Looks Like.

The African American Population

According to the 2010 US Census, 13.6% of the American population is Black or African American. This report also indicates that the African American population is growing at a faster rate than the population as a whole. The increase in the Black population (or any minority population for that matter) has ramifications for institutions such as higher education, which will see an increase in African Americans due to the growing population.

African Americans in Higher Education

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 9.8% of the bachelors degrees conferred in 2008-2009 were to African Americans.  7.8% of males who received degrees were Black, and 11.3% of females were Black. For doctoral degrees, 6.5% were conferred to Blacks; 4.6% of males were Black, and 8.3% of females were Black. There are several reasons for the underrepresentation of Black males in higher education, which this blog post will not address. Recently, Shaun Harper conducted a study on successful black males in academia by drawing from a samples of males who had already been successful. This approach to the study allowed for very interesting policy recommendations for universities to follow to increase the number of successful Black males on campus.

At the university of Washington, 2.6% of Bachelor’s degrees conferred in 2008-2009 were to Black students, 2.8% of Master’s Degrees, 1.2% of Professional Degrees and 1.2% of Doctorates were awarded to Black students. All of this is below the African American population of Washington state, which is 3.6%.

The African American Community at the University of Washington

Just over 40 years ago, several students from the Black Student Union took over president Odeggard’s office and this sit-in changed the way the University of Washington viewed diversity. It was this sit-in that led to the creation of programs such as the Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity and the Graduate Opportunities & Minority Achievement Program and the creation of the space known as the Ethnic Cultural Center.

The Black Student Union and Black Student Commission continues to have a strong presence on campus. Currently, the UW also has a National Society of Black Engineers Chapter, a Black Law Students Association, the Association of Black Business Students, and some students are starting a chapter of the National Black Graduate Student Association.

African Americans in STEM Fields  

According to the most recent data from the National Science Foundation, Black males are 4.6% of all enrolled undergraduate students in science and engineering fields in 2008. Women comprise 8.1% of students in STEM fields. Additionally, African Americans comprise 5.9% of all bachelors degrees awarded in STEM fields.

Blacks comprise only 6.4% of the national graduate student population in the sciences in 2009. For engineering, the number is only 2.9%. Black females comprise 8.4% of the female graduate student graduate population in the sciences and men are 4.4% of the male population. Black males are 2.1% of the population of both genders of those enrolled in graduate fields in sciences and engineering. Blacks comprised 3.1% of those granted doctorate degrees in science and engineering in 2009.

Our student spotlight for this post is an African American male in Engineering. Although he is not one of the respondents in Shaun Harper’s aforementioned studies, he very well could have been. You will also be hearing more from Keon himself tomorrow.

Student Spotlight: Keon Vereen

Name: Keon Vereen
Major:  Aerospace Engineering
Year: 1st Year Graduate
Hometown: Orlando, FL
Ethnicity: African American

I am a PhD student at the University of Washington majoring in Aerospace Engineering. Within my department, I am working with the plasma physics group. My research interests are focused on advanced in-space propulsion, experimental plasma physics, and plasma thruster development.

I am also involved in educational outreach initiatives to promote diversity within the science and engineering fields.

When I have free time, I like to go for a swim or run as well as hang out with my friends.

Student Spotlight: Yuríana Garcia

Name: Yuríana Garcia
Major:  Intended Bioengineering
Year in School: 2nd Year Undergraduate
Ethnicity: Hispanic
Website: http://www.facebook.com/Yuriana10

My name is Yuriana, I am a second year undergraduate at the UW. Early in my adolescence I found my passion for learning. It was in my biology class I was blown away by material presented to me. It was there that my journey in the sciences began. I was also very interested in engineering and technology, and so I decided to major in bioengineering with the hope to one day be able to do research that includes both the innovation of new technology and the biology of human species. I have worked on various research projects from studying techniques to analyze and sequence DNA molecules in the human genome in the Parvis Lab to examining the role of an enzyme in methanol metabolism in the Lidstrom Lab. In my free time I like to read, volunteer, listen to music, hike, and dance .

Guest Blog: Productive Group Planning

I spend a lot of my time collaborating with different groups, planning opportunities for communities to interact with scientists, and I’ve developed a slightly frightening habit in the last few months of enthusiastically blurting out, “Let’s use a logic model to plan our next event!”  Logic models have become indispensable tools in my professional work because they require articulation of project goals, objectives, activities, resources and expected outcomes. Read on and be prepared to publicly declare your nerd love of this handy planning tool.

 What is a logic model?

Many versions of logic models exist and they’re used for a variety of purposes, but generally they’re tools that identify why you’re doing a project, what you’re doing and what you expect to get out of it.  For the rest of this post I’ll share their use in the context of planning an event or activity, and from the viewpoint of a scientist who has cannibalized parts of the process that have best fit my needs in project planning with collaborators.

Why use logic models?

Efficiency

If you’re planning with a group, I highly suggest creating a draft logic model before your first meeting, especially if logic models are new to the group.  This can be done on Google documents and shared with other members of the planning group.  Then members can review the draft and make comments (using different colored font helps track changes) or come to the meeting prepared to discuss the draft.  I’ve found this process creates a structure for dialogue that prevents becoming mired in a brainstorm of activities and sets up the group to make decisions more efficiently.

Enhancing collaboration

Effective collaborations require identifying the needs and interests of all involved individuals and organizations, and where interests overlap.  Identifying partner motivations is not always easy, especially when organizations with different cultures are interacting.  Logic models provide a tool for participants to clearly articulate their interests and a way to identify overlapping motivations by crafting large-picture goals and objectives as a group.

Anchoring ideas

Often, people have lots of good ideas for activities to do for events or projects and planning conversations get mired in discussions of possible activities. Decisions about what activities we choose to do for a project result from balancing constraints of available resources and what we’re trying to accomplish.  Logic models provide a concrete framework to identify these factors, making decisions about prioritizing or editing activities much easier, especially if the project expands and needs to be called back to a manageable size.

Maximizing benefits

While we hope that our projects go well, how will we know that our event or program was successful? What evidence will we use for grant proposals or reports to demonstrate success?  Using logic models ensures that you will know what information you want to collect to document success and help you effectively articulate the impacts of your project.

A logic model for scientists

After a year of helping to plan programs and events as part of my position at SoundCitizen, I finally realized I needed a better set of tools to be able to assess if a project was a success (program evaluation!).  I spent a morning with professional evaluator Dr. Andrea Anderson and Dr. Tansy Clay.  Andi patiently explained the theory of logic models and their use in planning and evaluation to two unpracticed scientists.  The result of that training was this tool – a Logic model for scientists.

How to use “Logic Model for Scientists”

Example of the ‘Logic Model for Scientists’

Goals

The first section you should tackle are the goals. The point of this part of the model is to place your program or event in the large picture – as Andi explained them, the goals are the “lofty humdingers.”  The grandiose impacts or changes you hope your actions will accomplish.  I’m not going to lie – the first time I did this part of the model and even in subsequent use, leading a group through discussing this part feels really odd (especially with scientists) but as the planning moves forward the goals provide critical touchstones that allow you to keep perspective and make decisions based on common goals.

Objectives

Next, you should identify your objectives. Objectives are the smaller, more specific and measurable goals that will help you achieve your lofty goals.  What’s the difference between a goal and objective?  While goals are broad and can’t really be validated, objectives are more narrow and concrete.  Many agencies and management professionals employ SMART criteria when creating objectives. This means the objectives are:

Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Time-bound

Figuring out how to create good SMART objectives isn’t easy the first few times, but I guarantee once you’ve had some practice, these objectives are life-savers in keeping planning and group discussions focused and productive.   If you’re interested in learning more about setting SMART objectives, here is a handout with diagnostic questions that will give you more information about setting productive objectives.

Activities & Resources

Once your goals and objectives are outlined, you’re ready to start brainstorming the activities that will support accomplishing your objectives.  You will likely find yourself going back and forth between identifying activities and considering the resources you have on-hand to accomplish them.  I have approached this part of the model by brainstorming possible activities, then editing based on available resources and by evaluating which activities best support accomplishing my objectives.

Outcomes

The outcomes section helps you develop what evidence are you going to look at to determine if you accomplished what you set out to do.  Outcomes are extremely valuable for documenting the impact of your activity or event, understanding how you will evaluate what went well and reflecting how things could be changed in future efforts to better accomplish objectives.  While it may not always be an appropriate use of your time and energy to create an extensive list with short, mid and long-term outcomes it’s worth spending some time considering outcomes to maximize the benefit from the energy you put into the project.

Amanda Bruner is a Research Scientist & Outreach Coordinator at the University of Washington.  Her current position with SoundCitizen is focused on broadening public participation in environmental research.

Student Spotlight: Patricia Montaño

Name: Patricia (Patty) Montaño
Major: Museology
Year in School: Second Year Masters
Ethnicity: Bolivian

Patricia (Patty) Montaño graduated from Occidental College in Los Angeles, CA with a Bachelor of Art in Biology in 2004. In Spring 2011 she completed a Master’s in Science in Biology from the University of Washington. Though a science nerd, Patty also studied dance, and the piano from a young age through her undergraduate years. Her work in education inspired her to pursue a career in museums where she could invite the public to consider the personal and cultural significances of science. Her past museum experiences have been as a docent and developer of bilingual materials at the University of Washington Botany Greenhouse, and co-creator of a summer camp at the Conservatory at Volunteer Park in Seattle. Once she completes her M.A. in Museology in 2012,  she looks forward to bringing her multi-disciplinary interests together to produce exciting public programs for museum visitors of all ages and backgrounds. 

Patricia’s CV can be found here

 

Guest Blog: Communicating Science Effectively

Racing heart. Hot neck. Sweaty palms. Nervous ticks.

Do you often experience these symptoms? If you experience 2 or more of these symptoms, you may be suffering from a common condition referred to as Pre-Talk Anxiety.

Last fall, I decided to battle these nerve-racking symptoms. I would not be ruled by stress and anxiety before giving a talk. I have also had the distinct displeasure of being an audience member in various science talks that seemed like they would never end – the speaker was hidden behind the podium, spoke for 50 minutes in a monotone voice, and the slides were boring and hard to decipher. Besides a fitful and awkward nap, I took nothing substantial from these talks. They were a waste of my time. As a graduate student, I attend about 3-5 scientific talks a week with each talk ranging from 30 to 60 minutes – these include journal club, research talks by my peers, and invited speakers from other institutions. If at minimum I spend 3 hours a week listening to science talks, over the course of a school year, I listen to over 90 hours of talks a year. That’s a lot of time! While I’m sure there are many strategies to become an effective listener, a sure fire way to ensure that no one naps during your talk is to be an engaging speaker.

This is why, among other reasons, I started my journey to becoming an effective communicator by signing up for a course offered at the University of Washington: ASTR 599B – Communicating Science to the Public Effectively. This 2 credits course met every Monday from 2:30-5:20pm during the 2011 fall quarter. Throughout the course, graduate students practiced several strategies designed to make communicating science effective and accessible, used improvisation to reduce anxiety and promote audience engagement, and heard from many guest speakers on science communication. Each student’s final project will cumulate in a 30-minute public presentation to be delivered during the winter quarter’s Engage: The Science Speaker Series.

From the get go, we began working on our presentations for the Engage seminar. This is definitely a great way to get the most out of the course. We practiced storyboarding, improvisation, developing analogies to convey research, choosing content rather than jargon, distilling ideas concisely, and public speaking. If you walked by and looked into our classroom, you would often find us standing in a circle playing an improv game. Personally, one of the most nerve-wracking improvisation activities for me was to give a 1 minute presentation on a topic I was given 2 seconds before my talk began! We also had weekly readings and discussions and often heard from guest speakers.

So what is the best way to engage your audience? Tell them a story! For the vast portion of human history, we have been oral storytellers and listeners. Our brains are hardwired to process this information quickly and store it away. Good stories have four main parts: the setup, complicating action, development, and climax. In the Setup, the initial situation is established and protagonist and the protagonist’s goals are introduced. In the Complicating Action, the story is taken in a new direction and there is some action (the antagonist may cause some strife here). In the Development, the protagonist’s struggles to complete the goals are developed in-depth. In the Climax, progress is made toward resolving the goal. If you so desire, you can even add an Epilogue part to wrap up the story. Take a look at any movie or even a SpongeBob SquarePants episode, you’ll see each of these parts play an integral role in making a good story. If you have ever watched a particularly bad movie, one of these parts might have been out of skew; the setup may have taken too long, there was no climax, or the complicating action was not developed. This may be why some scientific talks are hard for a general audience to sit through. Scientific talks are often presented in an order that is contrary to our storytelling hard-wired brains- Introduction, Methods, Results, and Conclusions. This format probably evolved because this is how scientific papers are written. But, there is still hope for us yet. We can take the very same storytelling strategies I mentioned above to make scientific talks easier to follow and more interesting to audiences.

A fellow UW SACNISTA, Laura Martinez, also took the course this fall. Not only was it my pleasure to see Laura every week, for your reading pleasure is her take on the course. Laura says, “I think it’s important to concisely and effectively communicate our research and findings to our colleagues in the scientific community and the greater public. Unfortunately, this is not an inherent skill for many, but is certainly expected in our fields. I was very motivated to take this course to challenge myself and to learn skills that would help me become a better communicator and to gain a growing confidence when encountering an audience. Our instructors and guest speakers offered very enlightening perspectives about engaging our audience by telling a story and giving our research work and findings personalities. Developing these skills comes with time but I strongly believe that it is well worth it to be able to effectively communicate science topics and issues and to dispel any information that is often misconstrued because of our inability to communicate it. Our work is meaningful and we can make a powerful impact on our close to home and heart communities and the greater public.”

As a SACNISTA, it is important that we not only do great science, but that we are able to communicate our work to our family, communities, and peers. Throughout my journey to become a better communicator, I have often thought about how I can take these strategies back to my tribe, where elders often don’t speak English and there is not even a word for “cell” and “DNA” in our language. This will be a challenge that we all face as we endeavor to become professionals in our respective fields, and still remain connected to our communities and cultures. But you can start by realizing your public speaking weaknesses and conquering them with effective strategies. In the interest of space, I’ve only relayed a few gems of advice, but I just want to mention that there are great resources out there where you can find a more thorough discussion on various topics. In particular, below I’ve listed some great resources for building your powers of communication.

Books

Olsen, Randy. Don’t Be Such a Scientists: Talking Substance in an Age of Style. Island Press, 2009.

Dean, Cornelia. Am I Making Myself Clear?: A Scientist’s Guide to Talking to the Public. Harvard University Press, 2009.

Mooney, Chris and Cheryl Kirshenbaum. Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future. Basic Books, 2009.

Looking for opportunities to improve your presentation skills?

The Pacific Science Center offers a Science Communication Fellowship that is composed of “professional development workshops focused on building the skills to effectively engage public audiences.

Also offered by the Pacific Science Center is a popular series called Science Café.

Check out the Toastmasters International. There are various Seattle Toastmaster Clubs you can become a part of.

Want a beer and science? Check out Science on Tap where several UW scientists are featured.

Radio Science? Academia Nut on Hollow Earth Radio

General information about Engage: The Science Speaker Series and Seminar.

More information specifically about the seminar.

Featured SACNISTAs in the Engage: The Science Speaker Series and Seminar

In addition, please support the your UW SACNAS Chapter peers. Both Laura and I took the course together last fall, and will be giving our Engage talks soon. Mark your calendars, but if you can’t make it, our talks will be recorded and uploaded onto this blog for anyone interested in viewing them. We have tried to use all of the strategies from the course so hopefully our talks can serve as an example on how to use analogies and what I mean by storytelling. Tickets are free to UW Students. Please bring your UW ID cards

Laura E. Martinez

The Life And Times Of A Cancer-Causing Bacterium That Can Thrive In The Human Stomach
Thursday February 23 08:15 PM Downstairs At Town Hall Part Ii

Katrina Claw
Mission Impossible: A Sperm’s Perilous Journey To The Center Of The Egg
Thursday March 01 08:15 PM Downstairs At Town Hall Part Ii

Katrina Claw is a 4^th year Ph.D. student in the Department of Genome Sciences. She is a member of the Navajo tribe and originally from Arizona. A more detailed profile of Katrina is located in an earlier blog post on Native American Heritage Month. 

Student Spotlight: Andrew Barr

Name: Andrew Barr

Major: Applied Math

Year in School: Senior

Ethnicity: Peruvian-American

Hometown: Washington D.C.

Website:  www.andy-barr.com 

My current studies and research at the University of Washington focus on applied math and high performance computing (HPC). My current research group, under professor Nathan Kutz, is creating software for American Sign Language recognition on smartphones. I recently was awarded a Mary Gates Scholarship to support this. I have been privileged to take a number of graduate courses as an undergraduate, and am currently applying to graduate programs in applied math.

Please visit Andrew’s website for more information on his academic career, his intentions in graduate school, his CV and his contact information. 

Guest Blog: Quantitative Advocacy

Advocacy & Statistics

Many times in graduate school and now in my position as a research scientist, I have found myself in the position of defending the importance of efforts towards broadening who is participating in STEM fields.  Conversations about diversity are much easier with other SACNISTAs – there are shared experiences and a natural empathy to the challenges of being underrepresented in an academic department.  The same conversation with another academic can invoke feelings of frustration, comments and questions that make me wonder if we’re even on the same planet.

In spite of the frustration, I decided that if I wanted to improve my advocacy skills and help change campus culture it was important to not avoid those conversations. I found through trial and error that if I’m talking to quantitative scientists about why we should be making efforts towards diversity, I should speak in numbers.  I don’t mean to paint all academics with a broad brushstroke, but having quantitative evidence infuses advocacy for diversity efforts with the kind of rigor that other academics recognize.  It’s speaking the language of the institution so you can start breaking down skepticism and move conversations beyond the need to defend why you spend time and energy towards increasing diversity.

Helpful resources

The National Science Foundation has an interactive website with statistics for women, minorities and persons with disabilities in science and engineering.  The site takes some navigating, but there is a wealth of up-to-date information – one nice feature is that they include descriptions the U.S. demographics on the site.  This allows you to illustrate visually how underrepresented some groups are in science and engineering.  There are limitations to the data sets.  For example, Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders and multiple-race are grouped as ‘other’ in employed scientists and engineers from 2006.

Quantitative descriptions of what schools in our communities look like have also been valuable in my work bridging the university and K-12 education efforts.  UW academics are often stunned by how diverse Seattle Public Schools are, especially when compared with the university’s student body.  Two sites that are particularly helpful in capturing the differences include the Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction and UW Diversity.

For the purposes of talking about SACNAS as a tool for enhancing diversity for groups beyond Hispanics/Chicanos and Native Americans, statistics from the 2011 conference are great tools for demonstrating how the SACNAS National Conference draws a diverse audience.

Challenges using social science

Digging into the statistics does take time and my training is not as a social scientist. I’m trained as a natural scientist and when I speak about diversity, I’m usually talking to other natural scientists about social science. My presentations of quantitative data are often the first time the audience has seen any kind of data connected to assertions about diversity in STEM.  Because I’m using data to illustrate broad points, I have found that it’s sufficient to my audience to be transparent about what I did with my data and why even though I’m sure some of it would make a rigorous social scientist cringe.

There are cases where you want to compare data from sources that don’t represent the same year, race/ethnicity categories, etc., but keep in mind that you can still use imperfect comparisons to make broad claims.  In the first figure above, I want to compare U.S. population and employed scientists and engineers from the same year but I didn’t want to use the archived U.S. population data from the NSF site because it added Native Americans to the category of ‘other’.  The US Census Bureau has population data from 2006, but the site is much harder to navigate than NSF. Since it’s reasonable to assume the U.S. population demographics wouldn’t shift radically between 2006-2008, I used data sets from two different years.

It’s also important to be aware that for some demographic data, population totals won’t add up to 100%.  In some data sets, ‘Hispanic’ is an ethnicity that is separate from race and people under this label are counted in more than one category.

There are many tools and strengths that SACNISTAs bring to the table when we’re advocating for diversity in STEM.  Quantitative data are valuable additions to our advocacy toolbox.

Amanda Bruner is a Research Scientist & Outreach Coordinator at the University of Washington.  Her current position with SoundCitizen is focused on broadening public participation in environmental research.

 

Student Spotlight: Vanessa Galaviz

Name: Vanessa Eileen Galaviz
Department: Environmental and Occupational
Hygiene, Department of Environmental and
Occupational Health Sciences, School of Public Health
Year in School: PhD Candidate
Ethnicity: Chicana
Hometown: Palmdale, CA
Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/vanessaegalaviz

Vanessa Galaviz supports the San Ysidro community in California with her research on personal exposure and uptake of diesel particulate matter (DPM) among pedestrians who cross the U.S.-Mexico border. 1-nitropyrene (1-NP) is a major constituent of DPM and   recent research has indicated 1-NP as an exposure marker for DPM due to its abundance and minimal contribution from other non-diesel sources. In addition, the applicability and utilization of 1-NP as a prominent DPM marker is strengthened in that biomarkers specific to 1-NP can be collected and quantified in urine. Utilizing biological and environmental sampling, her work as a doctoral student in the Environmental and Occupational Hygiene program will be used to support the recommendations of the local community group, Casa Familiar, and to provide information to the San Ysidro Community Group as well as the San Ysidro Smart Border Coalition, ensuring that the redevelopment planning already underway by the US Government takes into account community concerns.

The UW SACNAS Chapter is proud to announce that Vanessa will be receiving the Community Volunteer Award for the School of Public Health’s Tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. on January 12, 2012. Congratulations, Vanessa!   

Guest Blog: The World Population Hit 7 Billion

As the first guest blogger, allow me to introduce myself. I am a graduate student in the Sociology Department at the University of Washington. My area of focus is Demography, or more specifically defined, the statistical study of human population. In general, Demographers study issues related to fertility, mortality, migration and immigration. My specific area of focus for my dissertation research is educational inequalities, but I also spent a signficant amount of time studying fertility and contraceptive use in Indonesia and Southeast Asian Demography for a recent book chapter I co-wrote with my advisor.

As a student of Demography, naturally I get very excited when the results from the most recent US Census are published, or when an interesting situation in Japan leads to questions about life expectancy,  or even a recent finding that Mexican-American births are overtaking immigration numbers for the first time in history.

I was particularly intrigued waking up to a story on NPR on Halloween about how the human population reached 7 billion people and the implications of this number. The story also included a very interesting video on the world’s population and its growth over time using water dripping into and out of a tube. Showing the regions of the world by continent (with the exception of India, China and the rest of Asia) could be somewhat misleading. By grouping Southeast Asia with Japan, one might miss that Japan would probably have a very small amount of water dropping in from births and a the rate that it drops out from deaths would also be very slow due to a very high life expectancy.

Another neat website I came across while researching this subject is the BBC World App that allows you to enter your birthdate, country and gender so you can see where you fit in the human population. According to the app, I was the 4,579,633,137th person alive on Earth and the 79,245,691,742nd person to have lived since history began. The calculator also shows the number of births, deaths, immigrants and the average yearly growth per country and the life expectancy by gender. According to the calculator, I should live, on average 80.5 years, as a 29-year-old female living in the United States.  This information was taken from the 7 Billion and Me website developed by the UN. This website goes into more detail and tells you how many people have died since you were alive, the number of people born in different continents, the gender breakdown, and even the number of species that have become extinct since you were born, among other things. Very interesting (at least for a Demographer like me)! National Geographic also released an online and print series on the population reaching 7 billion people and the New York Times Blog created a visual capsule capturing our world at 7 billion people.

Population growth has always been somewhat of a popular topic among Demographers. In 1968, Paul Ehrlich wrote the book, “The Population Bomb” which stated that the world population would grow rapidly and even double between 1960 and 1999. While Ehrlich’s work is mostly dismissed by modern-day Demographers, his assumptions were not far-fetched given the time period. Family planning programs were not widely established in developing countries at the time, so women in countries with high fertility did not have access to modern birth control. For example, the Chinese One-Child Policy was not even established until 1978, so just looking at China during Ehrlich’s time would lead one to believe that the population was rapidly expanding. Also, advances in medical care and techniques, particularly for infants, has kept the mortality rates for many countries lower, so the need to have more children has diminished since the 1960s. For example, the total fertility rate (meaning the average number of children a woman will have if she survives through her entire reproductive period based on the rates of the period) from 1965-1970 was 4.45 children per woman for the world, and 5.37 children for less developed regions according to the UN Population Division 2010 projections. For the 2005-2010 time period, the numbers decrease to 2.52 for the world and 2.69 for the less developed regions. This shows a leveling out in the reproductive rates of the less developed countries with the more developed countries and that now less developed countries are also approaching replacement fertility, or when couples are only producing two children to replace themselves.

The most intriguing part about all of this is not that the human population has grown so rapidly over time, but rather how and where this growth is taking place. My advisors, who went to graduate school 30 + years ago, claim that much of what they focused on in their research was the rapidly growing human population, whereas I had to address issues with shrinking populations in Europe and Japan in a general exam question  a few years ago. Europe has fallen to below replacement level in 2005-2010, with a total fertility rate of only 1.53 children per woman, with Southern Europe at 1.43, Eastern Europe at 1.41 and Northern Europe at 1.83. Southeast Asian countries perhaps have the most remarkable decreases in fertility, with countries such as Thailand dropping from 6.13 children per woman in 1965-1970 to 1.63 in 2005-2010, Singapore dropping from 5.12 to 1.25 and Vietnam dropping the most remarkably from 7.33 to 1.89. East Asian rates are also very low. Japan has a rate of 1.32 children per woman, and Korea is at 1.29, down from 5.29 in 1965-1970.

According to the UN Population Division, mortality has also undergone a tremendous change since the 1960s. The life expectancy of the world was only 51.19 years in 1965-1970 and now it is 67.88. For Asia, the numbers raised from 46.36 to 68.98. That means, on average, people are living 20 years longer than they were 40 years ago. Japan, of course, has the highest life expectancy at 82.73 years.  The infant mortality rate has also significantly decreased over time. In 1965-1970, 94 out of every 1,000 infants died. In 2005-2010, only 46 out of 1,000 died. For less developed countries, the number decreased from 152 out of 1,000 in 1965-1970 to 80 out of 1,000 in 2005-2010. This indicates that the infant mortality rate was cut in half for the world, and for essentially all regions of the world as well. Most remarkably, for more developed regions, only 6 out of 1,000 infants die each year.  This indicates that for infant survival, a woman has to be less cautious of infant death than 40 years ago, and therefore can have fewer children to ensure greater survival of those children.

So the real question is, in a place like Vietnam or Korea who went from high fertility to low fertility, or a place like Japan, where live a very long time, who is going to take care of the elderly? If parents aren’t even replacing themselves, there will be multiple parents, aunts and uncles for each child. Who will pay for the pensions of these retirees as well? Some of this can be answered by immigration, but not all of it. France, which just saw its fertility rate drop below 2 for the first time in history, offers financial incentives to women who have more than two children. Will this work? Is a few thousand dollars worth the costs of the lifetime of another child, plus will having a third child impact a career? It may be too soon to tell, but since the worldwide trend seems to be to have fewer children, this may be too little, too late.

I think the big question on everyone’s mind is should we be concerned about this growth? If you ask me, the answer is a that it is not the growth we should be concerned about, but rather how we control poverty and take care of our rapidly aging populations with fewer and fewer young people in a given society.  Also, we’ve seen that the Earth can accommodate 7 billion people and probably many more than that, but how can we create a sustainable environment to continue to utilize our natural resources and not deplete the resources given to us? This could lead to a beautiful marriage between Demography and Environmental Science. Unfortunately, I do not have another 5 years to earn a second PhD, so hopefully future scholars will continue along the path to interdisciplinary scholarly research and establish the consequences of population growth on not just our society, but also our planet as a whole.

 

Sabrina Bonaparte is a PhD candidate in the Sociology Department at the University of Washington. Her main focus is demography and her current dissertation research is on the educational attainment of immigrants and ethnic minorities in the United States. 

November is Native American Heritage Month

In honor of Native American Heritage Month, the first blog post will focus on Native Americans in higher education as it relates to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields as well as undergraduate and graduate education as a whole. This blogpost will also feature Native American resources and activities on the University of Washington campus in addition to the research conducted by Native American scientists at the UW.

Native Americans in the US, Washington, and in Education

According to the 2010 Census figures, Native Americans comprise 0.9% of the total United States population. In the state of Washington, this number is slightly higher at 1.5%.Concerning educational attainment, for adults over the age of 25 living in the US, only 17.7%  have a bachelor’s degree and  10.4% have a master’s degree, according to the 2010 American Community Survey. In the Native American community, the numbers are much lower. The National Center for Education Statistics show that in 2003, 9% of Native Americans had a bachelor’s degree and 3.6% had a graduate degree. Additionally, Native Americans only comprised 0.4% of all of the facultyin universities across the country.In the STEM fields, there is an issue with under representation with women and nearly all minority groups . According to the National Science Foundation, in 2008, only 0.4% of all enrolled graduate students in STEM were Native American. For undergraduates, the number is 0.9%. Concerning degrees conferred, 0.7% of bachelor’s degrees conferred in STEM fields in 2008 were to Native Americans, compared with 0.4% of master’s degrees conferred and  0.3% of the doctoral degrees conferred.

Native American Students at the UW, by the NumbersThe most current statistics listed on the University of Washington’s website indicate that during Spring Quarter of 2009, 1.3% of undergraduates and postbacs and 0.9% of graduate students and non-matriculated students were Native American/Alaska Native. Within the University of Washington Graduate School during the 2009-2010 academic year, only 1% of the student body is Native American/Alaska Native (100 out of 10,297), according to the 2011 Diversity Report.This means that when numbers are compared between the Washington state population and the University of Washington, Native Americans are underrepresented both in Undergraduate and Graduate education.

How to Increase the NumbersOn a national level, SACNAS works to increase diversity within the scientific fields by promoting higher education as a path to innovation and scientific leadership. On a more local level, the UW SACNAS chapter echos the goals of the national office in promoting science education through mentoring and a tight support network to recruit and retain minorities in STEM fields. Already, the chapter has been relatively successful. For example, last year, 7 out of 43 (22%) of our active chapter members were Native American. This number continues to grow.There are also many other organizations on campus with the goal of increasing diversity in STEM fields and the larger university community.For undergraduates, we have a chapter of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society, the American Indian Student Commission, First Nations at the University of Washington student groups. Through the Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity (OMA/D), there are several programs promoting diversity. Specifically related to the STEM fields is the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program, an NSF-awarded grant to the University of Washington in participation with  five institutions in the Pacific Northwest. The main goal of the LSAMP program is to  increase the recruitment, retention, and graduation rate of underrepresented students in the STEM fields. Also through OMA/D is the Ronald E. McNair Post-baccalaureate Program, which prepares underrepresented, first-generation college and low-income undergraduate students for doctoral research through research opportunities and scholarly activity.For graduate students, there is Native American Students in Advanced Academia, the Medicine Wheel Society for medical students,  and the Native American Law Student Association.  Additionally, there are programs like the Graduate Opportunities & Minority Achievement Program, an office within the Graduate School that works to promote diversity in graduate education.

There is also a considerable amount of activity surrounding recruiting younger students to college. The Pathology Department in the School of Medicine has a Native American Outreach Program for middle school students from tribal reservations in the Pacific Northwest. Our chapter also partners with the Seattle Clear Sky Native Youth Council by tutoring students once a week and participating in social events.

To promote community within faculty and staff, there is also a Native Faculty and Staff Association at the University of Washington.

Academically, the UW has an American Indian Studies Program for undergraduates and a Native Voices Indigenous Documentary Film Program through the Department of Communication and the American Indian Studies Program.

The Indigenous Wellness Research Institute is perhaps the most notable research group on campus. Their mission is “To marshal community, tribal, academic, and governmental resources toward innovative, culture-centered interdisciplinary, collaborative social and behavioral research and education.” The research institute builds partnerships partners with tribal organizations to develop community-driven research and is comprised of mainly Native American and Alaska Native faculty and staff.

For more information on resources for Native American students at the UW, both in STEM and beyond the STEM fields, please reference the Tribal Leadership Summit Report for 2011-2012.

Spotlight: Native American Student Chapter Members

As mentioned earlier, our SACNAS chapter consists of many Native American students. This next section highlights their academic work and their contributions to the STEM fields.

Name: Katrina G. Claw

Department: Genome Sciences

Grad/Undergrad:Grad

Tribal Affiliation:Navajo

Hometown: Many Farms, Arizona

I study the evolution of reproductive proteins in humans and non-human primates. My research combines a novel approach utilizing comparative genomics and proteomics to address evolutionary questions. In particular, I’m interested in using proteomics to identify and quantify the abundance of male reproductive proteins. I am using a combination of population-level and long-term evolutionary methods to see how selective pressures have influenced the evolution of male proteins in relation to mating systems (promiscuity versus monogamy) in the hopes of identifying candidate genes important for fertilization and reproduction. Outside of research, it is important for me to remain connected to the community and my tribe. I continually advocate for the advancement of underrepresented minorities in the sciences through organizations such as SACNAS, MESA, and NASAA/NOIS at the University of Washington. My career aspirations include continuing in the research field and pursuing an academic position in the sciences. I also love to hike, travel, and watch cheesy television shows.

Name: Keolu Fox
Department: University of Washington, School of Medicine, Genome Sciences
Grad/Undergrad: 2^nd year graduate student
Tribal Affiliation: Kingdom of Hawai’i
Hometown: Prince Georges County

I am a genome scientist. My research focuses on discovering genetic variants that contribute to health disparities in diverse populations. Currently I work with experts at the Puget Sound Blood Center, Seattle, WA. We are focusing on the implementation of next generation sequence analysis of human blood group antigens to increase compatibility for blood transfusion therapy.

My true passion is creating a better understanding of human genetic variation.  In the future I plan to focus my research efforts on underrepresented Polynesian populations. As a Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) I feel obligated to give back to my community by focusing my research efforts on Polynesian populations so that we are not the last to benefit from genetic research. I am also involved as a graduate student senator representing genome sciences in the University of Washington, graduate and professional student senate.  I am keenly interested in science policy issues that will affect the outcome of genomic research in the future.

I am actively involved in the UW SACNAS chapter where our goal is to increase the representation of minority students in the sciences.  Hands down, diversity is the most beautiful thing in life.

I am a huge archeology nerd. I love to read (everyone please read “The Wayfinders” by Wade Davis). I love watching and playing sports especially soccer, snowboarding, and surfing. I’m learning to play the Ukulele (slowly) and if I’m not working or traveling I’m catching fish.

Name: Laurel L James
Department: College of the Environment,  School of Forest Resources
Grad/Undergrad: Graduate Student
Tribal Affiliation: Yakama Nation
Hometown: Harrah, WA

I am currently completing a MS in Forest Resources – Fire Ecology with a project completed in collaboration with the Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes (CKST) of Montana.  Thesis titled:  National to local:  a pre & post assessment of FCCS landscape variables for the CSKT.  I will soon begin a PhD program, focusing on Indigenous Knowledge Systems in Fire Prone Ecosystems.   I’m a member of the UW Bioenergy IGERT http://bioenergy.washington.edu Cohort II; an Interdisciplinary team that completed renewable energy assessments (Solar, Wind & Biomass) for the CSKT in 2010.

I am currently employed with the Northwest Advanced Renewables Alliance (NARA) http://nararenewables.org a USDA regional Biofuels grant awarded to Washington State University.  I am the program manager for the Tribal Projects Team based out of the University of Washington – Chemical Engineering Department.  Additionally, I am a parent to a fabulous 14 year old!

Name: Ruth Anna Sims
Department: Electrical Engineering
Grad/Undergrad: 2nd year Graduate
Tribal Affiliation: Navajo and Sioux
Hometown: Seattle, WA

Currently I study Controls in the Electrical Engineering Department here at the University of Washington. I did my undergrad at Seattle Pacific University with majors in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics and minor in Physics. I was born and raised in Seattle so of course this beautiful city is forever my home. However my mother is from Monument Valley on the Navajo Reservation so I have deep roots there and hope to some day use my education to benefit the reservation in some way, quite possibly using control theory applied to renewable power systems. I have 5 sisters and 2 brothers so naturally I like being around people and I basically just enjoy the social things of life.

Name: Joseph M. Yracheta
Department: Pharmaceutics
Grad/Undergrad: Graduate student
Tribal Affiliation: P’urepecha, Michoacan, Mexico
Hometown: Chicago

In my research, I am attempting to ameliorate, loss due to a health care model designed for a different population. The disease types, prevalence and survival rates are different for Native Americans. Moreover, the drug therapies are optimized for an enzyme profile other than people of the Americas. This creates the situation where an Indigenous Grandma or Grandpa sitting in town in Mexico, a mountain village in the Andes, the desert mesas of New Mexico, the tundra of Alaska, or on the rural gravel road of a South Dakota reservation dies a lonely, quiet and unnecessary death because the drug given to them either doesn’t help, cannot be properly monitored or increases the harm of whatever disease has befallen them. They often intentionally live their lives apart from the majority culture and are happy to do so. Equally often, they become sick and decide to avail themselves of western medicine to give them a fraction more of life to spend with grandchildren and impart the language or culture. Usually, however, the one place they can go to for help doesn’t know or care enough to hear them when they complain in a soft, embarrassed tone, “This medicine makes me feel funny, doctor, I don’t feel right”. Then the harried and  exhausted doctor says, “Sorry Mam, it sometimes takes a while to feel better, go home and keep taking them over the weekend and see me on Monday.” Monday never comes. Once again, a victim to their genes and historical trauma, another Native American person is lost. This is what motivates me. This is why I do what I do in the field of Pharmacogenomics.