Scientist Jess Wade is on a mission to ensure women in the field are not overlooked.
Every day she writes one Wikipedia page focusing on a different female scientist, in an effort to highlight women who have contributed to STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) but have largely gone unnoticed.
“We have this amazing platform to communicate who scientists are and the kind of science we do. Unfortunately, on English speaking Wikipedia it is really, really biased. Only 17 per cent of the bios are about women,” Wade told CTV’s Your Morning.
“I want all people to be able to go on Wikipedia (to) look something up… and then see the scientist behind it. To see we are actually a big group of diverse people who all make our understanding of the world better,” Wade said.
A postdoctoral researcher and physicist at Imperial College in London, she has managed to write more than 280 profiles in her spare time. She hopes her efforts will attract more women to STEM and close the gender gap.
Wade does admit sometimes finding information on a particular scientists can be challenging.
“Some of the more historical people can be a bit more difficult to research, but then it is so much more satisfying,” Wade said.
Wade has also created pages for women who inspire her. One of her personal favourite profiles was for Susan Goldberg, editor of National Geographic and the publication’s first female editor.
Wade said she had the chance to hear Goldberg speak last year and decided the rest of the world needed to hear her, too.
“When you entered the (web) page for National Geographic there was a little thing saying, ‘Editor Susan Goldberg’ but you couldn’t click her name. There was no more information behind that,” Wade said.
Wade also runs a website titled ‘makingphysicsfun.com’ — an outreach blog where she answers a number of basic scientific questions, provides teaching materials for students in elementary and high school.
‘Through science communication I discovered a love of the process of teaching science as much as I love my own research. There is nothing more rewarding than being able to inspire the next generation of scientists.”
