Dr. Kevin Hewitt, NSERC Chair for Inclusion in Science and Engineering, Associate Dean of Equity and Inclusion, professor of physics, and QEII Platinum Jubilee Medalist 2023, at Dalhousie University, will address social justice, injustice, and STEM when he delivers this year’s Dr. Agnes Calliste African Heritage Lecture on Tuesday, Nov. 26th.
Dr. Hewitt will speak on ‘Social Justice, Injustice and STEM: Connecting these ideas for better health outcomes and increased participation’ during the event, which starts at 7 p.m. in the Schwartz Auditorium.
The annual lecture series, now in its 14th year, is presented by the StFX Department of Sociology and honours the legacy of the late Dr. Agnes Calliste. Teaching at StFX for nearly 30 years, Dr. Calliste’s scholarship focused on the complex interaction of work, race, ethnicity, and gender in Canada. Her ground-breaking research with African-Canadian railway porters and Caribbean-Canadian nurses explored previously unexamined dimensions of our social history. Dr. Calliste studied not only the institutionalized oppression of such communities, but also their organized resistance.
Dr. Hewitt says numerous studies have found that those underrepresented in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) are motivated by service to community, and that they are pushed out when there is not a strong connection between STEM and society and are disenchanted by the lack of opportunities to pursue work related to social justice and activism in their STEM environments.
He says until we make the connection between STEM and the goals that drive their interests, such as mentoring students like themselves and addressing health problems in their community, we will continue to see few underrepresented students enter and remain in the field.
“In my own research and life work, I feel that great sense of responsibility to my community. I will describe how I have tackled topics that impact underrepresented communities, co-created organizations to diversify the next generation of scientists and brought science to public venues to raise awareness,” he says.
“Beyond my responsibility to the public writ large, my career has focused on two responsibilities with respect to the Black community: to bring those currently underrepresented in the field to become major contributors, not only as a matter of social justice, but also to accelerate the field's advance.
“Like Dr. Calliste, whose scholarship focused on the complex interaction of work, race, ethnicity, and gender in Canada, my most recent international and national collaborations also explore those complex interactions: in particular, the high prevalence of uterine fibroids among Black women. I will try to describe how a physicist can contribute to this interdisciplinary project in aid of improved health outcomes for African Canadian women.”
