{"id":8869,"date":"2023-10-12T20:08:21","date_gmt":"2023-10-13T00:08:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.une.edu\/research\/?p=8869"},"modified":"2023-10-12T20:10:26","modified_gmt":"2023-10-13T00:10:26","slug":"facing-racism-in-science-i-decided-to-prove-them-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.une.edu\/research\/facing-racism-in-science-i-decided-to-prove-them-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"Challenges facing first generation scientists: Facing racism in science, \u2018I decided to prove them wrong\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Immunologist Dequina Nicholas shares why mentorship is crucial for first-generation scientists.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Immunologist Dequina Nicholas was among 575 early-career scientists networking with 40 Nobel laureates at the 72nd Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in Germany in June. The Lindau meeting is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for early-career researchers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nicholas pursued graduate research in immunology, inspired in part by her mother\u2019s struggle with type 2 diabetes. After earning a PhD from Loma Linda University in California, she did postdoctoral research at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), researching the effect of inflammation and metabolism on reproduction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She credits her postdoctoral research programme, the US National Institutes of Health\u2019s institutional research and academic career development award<\/a> (IRACDA), with teaching her about great mentorship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nicholas, now at the University of California, Irvine, studies how lipid immunology contributes to type 2 diabetes and polycystic ovarian syndrome, with the goal of developing immunotherapies. Nicholas sat down with Nature<\/em> at the Lindau conference to discuss tackling racism in science head on and how, sometimes, burning a bridge can be an act of self-preservation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What motivated you to become a scientist?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

My parents are immigrants. My mum\u2019s from Jamaica, my dad\u2019s from Dominica. Their goal for me was to follow the American dream and become a doctor or lawyer. But I was always in love with science \u2014 science fairs, the scientific process and asking and answering questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During my chemistry honours project at Southern Adventist University in Collegedale, Tennessee, I was dehydrating alcohols with acids. I thought it was the most boring thing ever, but I enjoyed the autonomy of independent lab work. Back then, I had no idea what I would do with my degree afterwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Link to article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Immunologist Dequina Nicholas shares why mentorship is crucial for first-generation scientists. Immunologist Dequina Nicholas was among …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-8869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diversity-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.une.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.une.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.une.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.une.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.une.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8869"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.une.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8871,"href":"https:\/\/sites.une.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8869\/revisions\/8871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.une.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.une.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.une.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8869"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.une.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=8869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}