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Overview
CELEBRATING DIVERSITY IN STEAM THROUGH LIVE EXPERIENCES
COSI’s Color of Science initiative spotlights the diverse voices shaping science today. Focused on inspiring the next generation of innovators, this program connects students and the public with STEAM professionals from underrepresented backgrounds through engaging, real-world events.
The Color of Science
The Color of Science advances COSI’s mission to engage, inspire, and transform lives by
- Showing the next generation of diverse STEAM professionals the vast opportunities available across STEAM fields.
- Providing direct access to today’s leading scientists from underrepresented backgrounds.
- Raising awareness of the achievements of minority scientists, while helping audiences understand the challenges they’ve overcome.
- Offering relatable role models for underrepresented students, encouraging them to view STEAM as a powerful pathway to their future.
The Color of Science will help motivate young people, as well as career-reentering adults, to see themselves as the very people who will fill these in-demand STEAM jobs, while ensuring STEAM professions increasingly reflect and leverage the entire population – with all its diversity and the many potential scientific contributions this incredible diversity will enable.
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Resources
Digital Series Interview Archive
COSI and OHC Proudly Present: Celebrating Black Comic Creators!
Date: 2.24.2022
Speaker: Laurie Miller, COSI’s Animal Care Expert
Date: 11.04.2021
Speaker: Dr. Orlay Alonso, Cuban Concert Pianist
Date: 10.07.2021
Speaker: Matthew Portis, Inventor and Engineer
Date: 09.02.2021
Speaker: Dr. Swati Mohan, NASA Engineer
Date: 08.05.2021
Speaker: Sunita Williams, NASA Astronaut
Date: 07.01.2021
Open Q&A with Immunologist Dr. Frederic Bertley, COSI’s President and CEO!
Date: 05.06.2021
Speaker: Camille Schrier
Date: 04.01.2021
Speaker: Kellie Gerardi
Date: 03.04.2021
Speaker: Nicole Jackson
Date: 02.04.2021
Speaker: Caleb Anderson
Date: 01.8.2021
Speaker: Dr. Kathy Sullivan
Date: 12.3.2020
COVID Conversations
Speakers: 10tv’s Angela An and Tracy Townsend and COSI President and CEO and immunologist Dr. Frederic Bertley
Date: 04.05.2021
Speakers: Dr. Mysheika Roberts, Dr. Karen Wurapa, Ms. Tracy Maxwell Heard, & Ms. Demetries Neely
Date: 02.26.2021
Heritage Months
At COSI, we are always looking for ways to highlight the amazing contributions to science, technology, engineering and math made by underrepresented groups such as women, persons within the Latinix, African American, and Asian-Pacific heritages, as well as those within the LGBTQ+ community. Join us in celebrating the diversity in STEAM by learning more about these individuals below.
Temple Grandin
Dr. Temple Grandin is a Professor of Animal Science. Her research on animal behavior has helped advance the humane treatment of livestock. Dr. Grandin uses the unique way her brain works to imagine the animals’ perspective. Temple Grandin has become an advocate for Autism and the power of different brains.
Dana Bolles
Dana Bolles is an External Information Technology Lead for NASA. She has worked a lot of different jobs at NASA since 1995. Dana was born with limb differences…and is an advocate for people with disabilities in the STEM field, as well as an ambassador for the IF/THEN Initiative.
Geerat J Vermeij
Dr. Geerat Vermeji is a paleoecologist, someone who studies how organisms interact with their environment. He is also an evolutionary biologist, which means he studies how different forms of life on the planet have changed over long periods of time. His research is primarily focuses on seashells and mollusks! As a Blind Scientist, Dr. Vermeji learns about seashell shapes and details through touch.
Ralph Braun
Ralph Braun is a trail blazing inventor and entrepreneur. Ralph lived with Spinal Muscular Atrophy, and was a wheelchair user. He invented the motorized scooter, as well as the wheelchair lift used in accessible vehicles. By creating tools to help improve his life, he changed the lives of others with disabilities. Ralph’s company, BraunAbility, remains a worldwide entity and an industry leader in mobility aids.
Caroline Solomon
Dr. Caroline Solomon is a professor of Biology and the Dean of Faculty at Gallaudet University, which is an institution of higher education for Deaf students. Dr. Solomon, who became deaf as an infant after an illness, is a major proponent of helping students who are deaf or hard of hearing to have access to STEM learning.
Aaron Westbrook
Aaron is the Founder and CEO of Form5 Prosthetics, a non-profit organization that creates prosthetics for people with limb differences. Aaron was born with a limb difference and wears a prosthetic arm that he created for himself using a 3-D printer! Form5 Prosthetics engages with students who are interested in STEM by hosting specialized workshops that utilize 3-D technology. Aaron’s commitment to providing STEM education and experiences by giving back to the community is one of the many reasons he was recognized as a COSI STEM Star in 2019!
Dr. Mary Ann Horton
Mary Ann Horton is an internet pioneer. Born as Mark, she completed her Ph.D. in Computer Science at Berkeley in 1981, where she was an active part of the early UNIX development days that led to the development of Sun Microsystems, Cisco routers, Linux, and the Internet. She has been a keen supporter for transgender rights and as a result she won the Trailblazer Outie award, for her work to get companies she worked for to add transgender language to the EO policy and activism for transgender health benefits. Doctor Horton also served on the board of Stonewall Columbus.
Ann Mei Chang
Ann Mei Chang is a technology expert, global development advocate, author, and public speaker. She was most recently the Chief Innovation Officer for the Pete for America organization, the 2020 presidential campaign for Pete Buttigieg, the first openly gay presidential candidate. Ann Mei is a leading advocate for social innovation and draws on her rare experience as an executive across the tech industry, nonprofits, and the U.S. government to offer a unique perspective on tackling the most pressing social challenges of our times. She was included in the “20 Top LGBTQ+ Entrepreneurs, Executives and Thought Leaders” by Global Shakers in 2019.
Jack Andraka
Jack Thomas Andraka is an American university student, inventor, and cancer researcher. While still a high school student he came to national attention after winning the grand prize at the 2012 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair where he presented a method for possibly detecting the early stages of pancreatic and other cancers. As of 2018 he was enrolled at Stanford University as a junior majoring in anthropology and in electrical engineering.
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Margaret Mead
American anthropologist and psychologist, author of Coming of Age in Samoa, and Curator of Ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History. While President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1975 she presided over the passage of a AAAS policy statement deploring discrimination against gay and lesbian scientists. Mead helped pioneer, through cross-cultural studies, greater understanding for the natural variety of sexual behaviors that occur in human societies.
Bruce Voeller
Bruce Voeller is an American biologist and AIDS researcher who pioneered the use of nonoxynol-9 as a spermicide and topical virus-transmission preventative. He established the Mariposa foundation to conduct human sexuality research, placing special emphasis on reducing the risks of sexually transmitted diseases. At the time of his death, Voeller’s research centered on the reliability of various brands of condoms in preventing the spread of diseases, and on viral leakage studies for the then-recently approved “female condom”.
Sally Ride
Sally Kristen Ride was an American astronaut, physicist, and engineer. Born in Los Angeles, she joined NASA in 1978 and became the first American woman and LGBTQ person in space in 1983. Ride was the third woman in space overall. Ride remains the youngest American astronaut to have traveled to space, having done so at the age of 32. After flying twice on the Orbiter Challenger, she left NASA in 1987.
Emma Haruka Iwao
Emma Haruka Iwao is a Japanese computer scientist and cloud developer advocate at Google. In 2019 Haruka Iwao calculated the world’s most accurate value of pi – which included 31.4 trillion digits, far past the previous record of 22 trillion.
Alan Hart
Alan L. Hart was an American physician, radiologist, tuberculosis researcher, writer and novelist. He was in 1917–18 one of the first trans men to undergo hysterectomy and gonadectomy in the United States, and lived the rest of his life as a man. He pioneered the use of x-ray photography in tuberculosis detection, and helped implement TB screening programs that saved thousands of lives.
Lynn Conway
Lynn Conway is an electrical engineer and computer science expert, renowned for her pioneering work in microelectronic chip design. She’s been called the “hidden hand” in the 1980s microchip design revolution that made today’s personal computers and smartphones possible. After a lifetime struggling as living as a man, Conway made the decision to undergo gender reassignment surgery to become a woman, resulting in IBM firing her for her ‘choices’. In 2009, the LGBT rights charity Stonewall named her as one of the Stonewall 40 Trans Heroes.
Clyde Wahrhaftig
This award-winning geologist is famed for his application of geological science to environmental issues, making geoscience more accessible and understandable, and was one of the first scientists to highlight the role of plate tectonics in earthquakes to the public. It was when he was accepting a Distinguished Career Award from the Geological Society of America that he came out as being gay, after which he worked hard to convince his fellow scientists to accept and encourage gay students.
Michael Dillon
Laurence Michael Dillon was a British physician, famed for his work on ethics and medicine. He is the first person known to have transitioned from female to male both hormonally and surgically. In 1946 Dillon published Self: A Study in Ethics and Endocrinology, a book about what would now be called transgender, though that term had not been coined yet.
Dr. Sara Josephine Baker
Sara Josephine Baker was an American physician notable for making contributions to public health, especially in the immigrant communities of New York City. Her fight against the damage that widespread urban poverty and ignorance caused to children, especially newborns, is perhaps her most lasting legacy. Dr. Baker was an accomplished early 20th century scientist who lived with female partners all her life.
Olivia Aguilar
Dr. Aguilar is an Associate Professor in Environmental Studies at Denison University. She teaches a broad spectrum of Environmental Science courses, including core courses and some that examine issues at the intersection of environment, education, race/ethnicity, and community. Specifically, her work examines how sociocultural learning theories help to account for learning of marginalized groups in environmental and science contexts through community approaches. Her recent endeavors also involve a critical analysis of inclusive practices in the environmental arena.
Ozeas Costa, Jr
Dr. Costa is an Associate Professor at The Ohio State University. His research is primarily focused in the measurement and identification of natural and anthropogenic process that control the cycling of nutrients in aquatic and terrestrial systems. He has researched excess nutrients in nearshore/ offshore coral reefs of Brazil, as well as water contamination. He is a member of the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography, and has been on the OSU faculty since 2006.
Carlos A. Gomez
Carlos is a software Engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. He graduated from the University of Puerto Rico with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, and went straight to NASA. Carlos currently manages the overall design and integration of the ground system for the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) project. The MAVEN spacecraft will orbit Mars for a year and will explore its upper atmosphere, ionosphere, and interactions with the Sun and solar wind. This is the first Goddard-led Mars mission, and after the launch he will be the Missions Operations Manager.
Sidney M. Gutierrez
In June 1991, Sidney M. Gutierrez became the first U.S.-born Hispanic astronaut to travel into outer space. Gutierrez’s second flight into space took place in April 1994, when he served as commander of the STS-59 Space Shuttle mission. This assignment made him the first person of Hispanic descent to command a spacecraft.
Scarlin Hernandez
Scarlin is a spacecraft engineer for the James Webb Space Telescope. She tests and verifies ground software systems that are used to control telescopes while in space, one of which controlled the telescope when it is launched into space in October 2018. The telescopes will be used to discover new planets and the first stars after the dark ages. She completed an internship at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and by the age of 20, she was part of the ground control system team for the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite.
Roman Lanno
Dr. Lanno is a Researcher and Associate Professor at The Ohio State University. He and his team research the bio-availability of chemicals in the environment. Their primary focus is on soil-chemical interactions and the relationship between kinetics and residues of chemicals, such as biomarkers in both aquatic and terrestrial environments. He has used fish and isopods as models when examining bio-availability.
Ellen Ochoa
Dr. Ellen Ochoa, a veteran astronaut, was the 11th director of the Johnson Space Center. She was JSC’s first Hispanic director, and its second female director. Her previous management roles include Deputy Center Director and Director of Flight Crew Operations. In 1993 Ochoa became the first Hispanic woman in the world to go to space when she served on a nine-day mission aboard the shuttle Discovery.
Geisha Williams
Geisha Williams is a Cuban American businesswoman. At the age of five, she migrated to the US with her parents. She earned a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from the University of Miami and an MBA from Nova Southeastern University. She went on to become the first Latina to be president and CEO of a Fortune 500 company when she was selected to lead Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a nearly $30 billion firm with 20,000 employees that provides electricity and natural gas to about 16 million people in California. Williams joined PG&E in 2007 to oversee the company’s electric operations before she was named President and CEO 10 years later.
Kalpana Chawla
Kalpana Chawla’s love of flying led to her career as a NASA astronaut. She started her higher education in India, earning a B.S. in aeronautical engineering from Punjab Engineering College in 1982. Moving to the U.S., she turned to aerospace engineering and received her M.S. from the University of Texas and her Ph.D. from the University of Colorado. Chawla joined NASA in 1995 and was assigned as mission specialist on the space shuttle STS-87 in 1997, becoming the first Indian-American woman to go into space. She was a crew member on the Shuttle Columbia when it broke up upon reentry to the Earth’s atmosphere in February 2003.
Amar Bose
If you’re serious about your stereo equipment, you probably own or have owned Bose speakers! Amar Bose was born and raised in Philadelphia, the son of a political dissident who moved from Calcutta. As a teenager, Bose earned money by repairing model trains and then transistors, practical experience which helped when he went on to MIT to study electrical engineering. His speaker system was one of the first to make use of sound reflecting off walls and the ceiling. In 1964 he founded the Bose Corporation, which has developed car stereo systems, the Wave radio, as well as noise canceling headsets used by pilots and space-shuttle astronauts.
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Chandrasekhar earned a B.S. in physics at Presidency College, Madras, then went on to earn advanced degrees at Cambridge University, and a Prize Fellowship at Trinity College. In 1937 he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago. There he delved into such astrophysical subjects as stellar structure, the theory of white dwarf stars, and the mathematical theory of black holes. Chandrasekhar shared the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics “for his theoretical studies of the physical processes of importance to the structure and evolution of the stars.” NASA renamed the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility for him: the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, which helps astronomers better understand the structure and evolution of the universe.
Steven Chu
Steven Chu shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics for the development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light. In 1978 he went to work at Bell Laboratories, where he did his award-winning work. He went on to teach at Stanford and continued his work and also did research on polymer physics and biology. In 2004 he was named director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. President-elect Barack Obama nominated Chu as his secretary of energy.
Lue Gim Gong “The Citrus Wizard”
In 1885, Lue moved to Deland, Florida, where Fannie and her sister had bought land, and began to work in the orange groves. There he developed the extraordinary horticultural contributions that would earn him the title “citrus wizard.” The most famous of his creations was the “Lue Gim Gong orange.” These oranges would mature in August or September, ensuring that the fruit would not freeze and be ruined. It was an enormous advance for the citrus industry. He also developed a grapefruit that grew individually on the tree rather than in clusters, a strongly scented grapefruit, and a rosebush that produced seven varieties of roses.
David Ho
David Ho earned his B.S. in physics from Caltech, but was soon attracted to molecular biology and the cutting-edge technology of gene splicing. He went on to the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Science and Technology. The AIDS epidemic beckoned as a challenge and he began studying the virus at Massachusetts General Hospital and UCLA School of Medicine. Realizing that AIDS was an infectious disease and that HIV multiplies many times right from the start, Ho and his team administered a combination of protease-inhibitor and antiviral drug “cocktails” to early-stage AIDS patients with dramatic results. For his inroads into the vicious disease, Ho was named Time’s 1996 Man of the Year. Ho continues his work at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center.
Narinder S. Kapany- “The Father of Fiber Optics”
The “father of fiber optics,” Narinder Kapany grew up in northern India, where a teacher informed him that light only traveled in a straight line. He took this as a challenge and made the study of light his life work. He studied physics at Agra University and went on to advanced studies in optics at the Imperial College of Science in London. In 1954 Nature published his report of successfully transmitting images through fiber optical bundles. He also founded Kaptron Inc. and K2 Optronics. He has taught at UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, and Stanford University. Kapany was the founding chairman and major funder of the Sikh Foundation, which runs programs in publishing, academia, and the arts.
Chanchao Lorthongpanich
Chanchao received her Ph.D. from Suranaree University of Technology, where she studied mammalian embryo development and stem cell biology. Her focus is to identify factors affecting lineage differentiation in preimplantation embryo. Her work has demonstrated that not only the positional-information, but also proper expression levels of Hippo component genes play significant role in lineage segregation and differentiation in preimplantation embryos. She now works as a researcher investigating the role of Hippo signaling pathway in mammalian embryo and stem cells.
Varisa Pongrakhananon
Varisa is an Assistant Professor at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, investigating the role of CAMSAP proteins on cancer cell biology. Varisa is the first author of a paper published in Journal of Cell Science which investigates the role of CAMSAP3 on lung cancer cell migration.
Hasibun Naher
Dr. Hasibun Naher received her PhD from the School of Mathematical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). She is now working as an Associate Professor in mathematics at the Department of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, BRAC University (BU), in Bangladesh. She has published twenty five scientific papers in international journals. She is also serving as an International Scientific Committee with several International Conferences on Mathematics.
Dr. Tamal Lata Aditya
Dr. Tamal Lata Aditya has significantly contributed to the development and dissemination of over 12 improved rice varieties and 12 promising advanced breeding lines that primarily respond to drought and yield challenges. She has authored and co-authored multiple peer-reviewed scientific papers and presented works at many national and International conferences.
Surapa Thiemjas
Surapa Thiemjarus is a researcher from the National Electronics and Computer Technology Center (NECTEC), National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA), Thailand. She received her PhD degree in Computing from Imperial College, UK in 2007. Her research interests include context-aware and pervasive sensing, body sensor networks and applications, sensor fusion, machine learning, pattern recognition, sound and signal processing, and assistive technologies. She is currently a managing editor and an associate editor of the IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics.
Passports
In these passports, you will explore the great diversity that exists within a variety of scientific landscapes. We hope you enjoy reading these stories about some of the most remarkable men and women who are researchers, scientists and engineers!
Click on each theme’s icon below to view the passport!
Water
Nature
Dinosaur
Snow
Her Royal Scientist
Space
Energy
Human Body
