Darcel Rockett
Fermilab particle physicist Jessica Esquivel remembers telling people, at age 8, that she was going to be an astrophysicist after seeing the 1997 film “Contact” with Jodie Foster. For J’Tia Hart, a nuclear engineer at Argonne National Laboratory, it was her experience on a submarine during an internship while in Navy ROTC that was the spark that led her to a career in science, mathematics, engineering and technology (STEM).
“I was out on a submarine, underwater, powered by nuclear power, and I was a little scared,” Hart said. “I thought to myself, who is the person that makes sure all of this works how it’s supposed to? And they said, ‘That’s a nuclear engineer.’ I just thought it was the coolest thing ever. I said, I want to be the person who is in charge of making sure that all of this technology is being used safely.”
Esquivel and Hart have been showcasing the greatness of STEM to young girls and women of color for years in their respective fields. This year, they are doing that as IF/THEN ambassadors — a national initiative between the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Dallas-based Lyda Hill Philanthropies that has brought 125 women from STEM careers together to serve as role models for middle school girls.
And on Thursday, the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, Hart and Esquivel will be participating in the #STEMTag campaign. Touted as “the biggest game of tag in the world,” the ambassadors will tag on social media a woman in STEM who inspired them and then share the name of that person with a girl they want to inspire to pursue STEM.
“Doing a virtual tag campaign seemed like a fun, accessible and relevant thing we could do to celebrate that day and all of the amazing women in STEM who are changing the world,” said Nicole Small, CEO of Lyda Hill Philanthropies. “Given everything that’s going on in the world, everybody needs a little bit of inspiration and a little bit of joy, and what brings back fonder memories than a game of tag?” Small said. “Women make up over half the workforce, but less than 30% of the jobs in STEM. We really felt like we needed to focus on changing the visual representation of women in STEM for not just little girls, but everybody … just basic ‘if you can see it, you can be it.’”
Speaking of visual representation, if Esquivel looks familiar, you may have seen her at 2019’s Wakandacon, where she placed in a cosplay competition. Or her appearance on CBS’ “Mission Unstoppable,” an educational series in its second season that highlights and profiles female innovators in science (which will re-air Feb. 20).
Esquivel is a co-founder of Black In Physics, a grassroots movement and online community created in the wake of 2020’s social unrest; it centers on uplifting Black voices and celebrating contributions of those in the physics field. Esquivel says that when she’s not sifting through massive amounts of data or trying to answer questions that haven’t been asked before, she’s all about community engagement and mentorship of Black and brown girls. She says it’s her “fuel.”
“For me, it’s the excitement of sharing what I’m learning, of sharing all of these amazing, weird particles that I spent all of my life studying with the communities that I belong to — that is just as fueling, and that gives me just as much passion as doing the pure research,” Esquivel said.
Esquivel will be coordinating an edit-a-thon Wikipedia event the last week of February in partnership with the American Institute of Physics to help collate a list of black physicists who should be recognized for their contributions in physics, but haven’t been.
“They’re essentially still hidden figures in our field,” she said. “We want to create Wikipedia pages for them, so we can increase that representation of diverse Black scholars in our field… whether that be for their expertise in navigating white supremacist structures, in creating equitable and an inclusive environment, whether it be their really creative way of doing community engagement in science communication — all of this labor should be recognized.”
As the Women in Science and Technology Program lead at Argonne National Laboratory, Hart is coordinating “Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day,” which will stream on Argonne’s Facebook page Feb. 18 and “Science Careers in Search of Women” for teens April 15.
In addition to those events, Hart is announcing the launch of her personal passion project Thursday. It’s a web series called STEM Queens. Funded by IF/THEN, the series’ 10-minute episodes will show the range and excellence of Black women in STEM by featuring a professional talking about herself, her career and what she does for fun. The series shows that Black women in STEM exist and excel, Hart says.
“It’s really important for young women to see that you don’t have to look like Einstein to be in science and be successful. You can bring your whole beautiful, feminine self to STEM and be successful,” Hart said. “At every point during my career and education, when I wanted to go a different way, I had a strong Black woman who was like ‘get your behind back in STEM.’ And that is exactly what I’m trying to be for the next generation of young ladies. That’s why I applied to be an IF/THEN ambassador.”
