Cynthia Chapple, image © St. Louis Business Journal
While we’re keeping you in the know about local section members making noises on larger stages…
Cynthia Chapple, our Minority Affairs coordinator, was featured in a St. Louis Business Journal virtual symposium on “how racism has impacted their lives, impeded their careers and shaped the path they tread today.” The journal invited “a group of seven Black community leaders — accomplished professionals in fields of technology, marketing, law, nonprofits, community advocacy” to join the panel.
Cynthia, whose day job is senior research and development chemist at ELANTAS PDG Inc., told hard stories of being the only Black woman in her undergrad chem classes, graduate department, and among work colleagues; of being belittled and tokenized. Her experience led her to form a non-profit, Black Girls Do STEM. At first, “[i]t started out as me doing workshops in community centers trying to fill a need for programming for girls,” Cynthia related. As a full-fledged non-profit organization, it addresses broader goals of racial equity in STEM education and STEM careers.
Don’t take this Reader’s Digest condensed version as the whole story. Read it all, for yourself, here.
“Computers and the physics of complex biological systems”
