When Devin Swiner wanted to showcase Black chemists on social media, she thought it couldn’t hurt to enlist a few celebrities to the cause. What happened next took her by surprise.
“I think I’m now best friends with MC Hammer,” she jokes. “A couple of people tweeted him because he’s been on a science kick lately. He posted my intro video, and I thought that was great. But he didn’t stop – he tweeted every day that week.”
Hot on the heels of Hammer came similar endorsements from Black Panther and Creed star Michael B. Jordan and Destiny’s Child singer Michelle Williams. Yet while celebrity endorsements have helped Swiner’s idea – #BlackinChem – to reach a wider audience, it’s Swiner and her co-founders who took a Twitter hashtag and transformed it into a platform for underrepresented scientists to network, get support and find job opportunities.
Swiner, a chemistry PhD student at The Ohio State University, US, is no stranger to creating and cultivating communities. She is her chapter president of the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE). She also co-runs a blog, MacScientists, which discusses the realities of being a Black woman in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Throughout the summer of 2020, she noticed campaigns appearing on Twitter to promote scientists of colour in other fields. These had followed Black Birders Week, created after a woman called the police on a Black birdwatcher in New York. Why, Swiner thought, couldn’t it work for chemistry?
“I contacted Ashley Walker, the founder of #BlackinAstro, and said I’d love to curate #BlackinChem. Then we found a bunch of other people, and a few weeks later we were doing it: we are Black chemists. Here we are.
“Honestly, when we were planning it, we just thought we’d get some interaction, some engagement. Then it turned into a huge thing, which was great to watch in real time.”
A space to talk
A dedicated kernel of co-organisers, including Swiner and Walker, decided the week would follow a set format. Each day was devoted to a specific area of chemistry where Black scientists were encouraged to share their work and stories.
“Visibility was our main goal,” Swiner says. “A lot of similar weeks have been sort of ‘hey, we exist, and our contribution to science is also very valuable’. We wanted to give people that platform.”
But they also had subgoals. For instance, the #BlackinChem team made sure to give undergraduates the chance to ask senior chemists questions about their life and career – something Swiner says she would have found useful when she was “feeling lost” as an undergraduate.
When you hear a lot of peoples’ stories, they don’t have people in their department who are actively advocating for them, or saying ‘I’m here to help, I can answer your questions’. That leads to not necessarily being prepared for grad school, how to apply, or pick a lab when you get there.”
The issues raised tackled a host of problems faced by the Black community, giving students without a support network a space to talk. “Some departments want to tokenise you because you’re one of the few Black people in the department,” Swiner says. “If there’s any issue, they want to talk to you – but we just want to do school sometimes!
“Some students have preconceived notions about Black people. You get sexism, racism and phobias. It’s just the day-to-day of being a Black student – that people think that you don’t belong or they want to check your credentials.”
Beyond interaction
The week was a runaway success. As well as responses from the US and Canada, Swiner suddenly found #BlackinChem had more than 4000 followers around the world, including students in India, Africa and across Europe getting involved.
Twitter, she explains, was the perfect virtual platform. Because it archives conversations, black chemists in different time zones could follow conversations at a time suited to them.
And while #BlackinChem ran over a week, its objective was to foster long-term change and support black chemists at all career stages.
Swiner and her co-founders were proactive in getting sponsorship, attracting support from the NOBCChE and the American Chemical Society, which allowed them to create virtual competitions for undergraduates.
“We wanted to help develop soft skills like doing presentations, so we created an elevator pitch competition,” she says. “Then we wanted a way to keep people in a safe space, so we created a ‘wine down’ on Wednesday [a virtual meeting open to Black chemists].
“But we knew we couldn’t have a week like this without talking about what our journeys have looked like, so on Saturday we spoke about some of the issues that Black chemists face.”
The co-founders also focused on recruitment. The pipeline for Black chemists is particularly leaky. In the UK, for instance, 4.8% of undergraduate chemistry students are Black. At the PhD level, that fraction drops to 1.3%.
So the team set up a second hashtag – #RecruitBlackinChem – for job-seekers to advertise their skills. “We included it, and now it’s continuing,” Swiner says. “You can always use #RecruitBlackinChem for anything. It’s an open house.”
#BlackinChem’s worldwide success means it will now be an annual event, Swiner says.
Officially, the second week of August will be about Black chemists for as long as we can keep it going. We’re also going to turn our ‘wine down’ into a monthly event and have a lecture every couple of months about Black chemistry journeys.”
Although this was Swiner’s first foray into a Twitter campaign, it also meant she had no preconceptions, allowing the co-organisers to tackle what mattered most to them from the start.
Even so, Swiner says it was a learning experience – particularly around how science communicators need to think globally. “One thing we’re now considering is making sure we have events for different time zones,” she says. “So you might see #BlackinChemUS, or #BlackinChemInternational. But we do think a virtual format works.”
Similar plans are also afoot to support Black chemists in other disadvantaged groups, such as specific tags for the LGBTQI+ community or scientists with disabilities.
And as she reflects on the week’s success, it’s this wider community that really makes Swiner proud. “I have people trying to connect and figure things out from around the world now,” she says.
And with her celebrity friends, who knows where it may lead?
All of Marvel now knows who we are!” Swiner laughs. “It’s crazy… and it’s beautiful to see.”
Follow #BlackinChem on Twitter
Article by Kit Chapman
Photo supplied
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