Page 40 - BEQ Magazine Iss 20 Fall 2021 WebRev09272021

WIDENING THE LENS

“My complexity

makes me a

better scientist.”

By LEAH M. RADER BOWERS, PH.D.
M y chemistry career really chemist, an editorial board member of the Energy

Frontier Research Center (EFRC) Newsletter and
started my senior year at
have taught physics at the W.E.B. DuBois Scholars
The College of Wooster
Institute all while I’ve been here at Princeton.
taking a physical chemistry course taught I decided to try short hair; I code, travel, and
by the brilliant, fun, well-traveled Dr. read; I love doing building renovation projects
Sarah J. Smidtke Sobeck. As my senior and watching Bachelor in Paradise. I am complex
thesis advisor and professor, she taught me and that complexity makes me a better scientist.
My scientific collaborations flourish because I’ve
how physical chemistry could be applied
pulled concepts from mutual aid to really assess
to anything from art to computational what folks on my team are good at and pull our
modeling to tackling climate change. Her skills together in a way that makes sense. I under-
encouragement and celebration of my full stand that good mental health increases my pro-
ductivity and that of my labmates, so I advocate
self/variety of interests are what I held
for that whenever possible. The projects I take on
onto tightly throughout graduate school
are successful because I am in a group that allows
at the University of North Carolina at me to bring my whole self to the table in a posi-
Chapel Hill (Dr. John M. Papanikolas) and tion of leadership.
hold onto now as a postdoc at Princeton The ivory tower of academia is starting to show
cracks in its foundation. Women/femme scholars
University in Dr. Greg Scholes lab.
like Dr. Nikole Hannah-Jones and Dr. Lisa Jones
see the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion industrial
It wasn’t until a year ago that I started iden-
tifying as non-binary. Not much about my life complex for what it is and withdrew their appli-
cations from tenure-track positions from UNC-
changed because all parts of my identity existed Chapel Hill when board and high-donor politics
on a spectrum for as long as I could remember. confirmed they wouldn’t be supported there.
As a light-skinned biracial Black femme, my life Losing these amazingly diverse, complex, insight-
was never black and white. Coming out was my ful scholars there and everywhere else costs insti-
ultimate refusal to let anyone pin me down for tutions greatly. It costs universities in terms of
the sake of their own comfort. Today I am equal the ingenuity of the research they output, of the
parts scientist and community organizer. I am propagation of creative scholars that could have
an organizing member of Princeton Mutual Aid been born from the parent scholars’ mentorship,
(PMA), a spectroscopist and computational

40 FALL 2021 BUSINESSEQUALITYMAGAZINE.COM