Canadian astrophysicist Louise Edwards is used to answering some of the universe’s toughest questions. But at the moment she’s trying to answer this one: How many Canadian Black astronomers does she know?
Edwards, an associate professor in California Polytechnic State University’s physics department, is on a Zoom call with CBC while sitting in a friend’s brightly lit shed near her home in Berkeley, Calif.
Mulling the question, she turns her head to the right, facing white wood-panelled walls. She’s thinking hard.
“Ummm,” she says, looking off into the distance. “There are definitely a few new grad students that I know of.”
She pauses and smiles. “I know some physicists. And some education astronomy folks.”
It’s clear she’s struggling.
“Yeah, there’s very few,” Edwards finally says. “I don’t know if there’s any other folks who are currently working not as students [but] as astronomers who are Canadian. I don’t know. I would imagine I would know them.”
Canada has some of the world’s most talented astronomers, astrophysicists and physicists. There’s Victoria Kaspi, whose work on pulsars and neutron stars earned her the Gerhard Herzberg Canada gold medal for science and engineering; Sara Seager, a world-renowned astronomer and planetary scientist at MIT who earned a MacArthur “genius” grant in 2013 and is a leader in exoplanet research; and James Peebles, who won the 2019 Nobel Prize in physics.
One thing they have in common? They’re all white.
Black astronomers are few and far between in North America, but especially in Canada. Inside the community, members share stories of discrimination, micro-aggressions and feelings of isolation, which can ultimately dissuade others from pursuing careers in the sciences.
High school challenges
Hewitt is active in bringing STEM to Black youth. He co-founded Imhotep’s Legacy Academy, a STEM outreach program in Nova Scotia for Black students. His programs include the Young, Gifted and Black Future Physicists Initiative, a summer camp at Dalhousie.
Why are there so few Black Canadian scientists in general, but in particular, those who seek out a career in astronomical science?
One of the problems may be found in the education system.
Take the province of Ontario, for example. Until recently, high schools there had a “streaming” program, which directed students into different post-secondary routes. “Academic” courses were more challenging and required for university; “applied” courses prepared students for college and trades; and “essentials” provided support for students in meeting the requirements to graduate.
In 2017, a report led by Carl James, a professor in the faculty of education at York University in Toronto, found that only 53 per cent of Black students in the Toronto District School Board were put in academic programs, compared to 81 per cent of white students and 80 per cent of other racialized students.
Conversely, 39 per cent of Black students were enrolled in applied programs, compared to 16 per cent of white students and 18 per cent of other racialized students.
“What we found in that study was many of the [Black] parents were talking about how their children were streamed into vocational or essential or low-level courses,” James said. Some parents would try to “intervene,” he said, but their concerns fell on deaf ears.