"Systemic racial disparities in research funding"
What science is worth funding? And who decides and benefits? In this talk, Dr. Chen will present recent findings of racial disparities in funding rates at the National Science Foundation. From 1999 to 2019, white applicants were consistently funded at higher rates than most non-white applicants, and at rates that have relatively increased in recent years. The funding advantage for white applicants was greater for research proposals and persisted regardless of STEM discipline. Because similar patterns have been observed at the National Institutes of Health, NASA, and various philanthropic funders, these disparities are likely widespread. These trends undermine not only efforts to diversify STEM faculty and leadership, but also the integrity of scientific knowledge as a public good for all. Eliminating inequalities in STEM and academia will require a reorganization of what causes inequality in the first place: unequal access to social prestige and material resources.
Biography
Dr. Christine Yifeng Chen is a geologist and geochemist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where she is developing radiochronometric dating tools for nuclear forensics investigations of interdicted nuclear materials. Broadly, Chen is interested in refining uranium-series age-dating techniques to reconstruct the history of interactions between Earth’s changing climate, humans, and land surface processes across various timescales, from the Pleistocene to the Atomic Era. Before joining LLNL, she was the O.K. Earl Postdoctoral Fellow in the Geological and Planetary Sciences Division at Caltech. Chen has a Ph.D. in Geology from the MIT-WHOI Joint Program. Chen is also a co-founder of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Geosciences (AAPIiG) and an appointed member of the American Geophysical Union’s Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Committee. Recently, she led a study showing systemic racial disparities in funding rates at the National Science Foundation. This work was covered in various outlets such as Science Magazine and The New York Times and recognized by President Biden with an invitation to the White House for the CHIPS and Science Act signing ceremony.
If you are interested in meeting with Dr. Chen, please email Lauren Moseley ([email protected])
