When Bryson Parham Jr. set out to find a Wikipedia article to improve as part of his Wikipedia assignment, he wasn’t browsing the online encyclopedia at random. Instead, the Long Beach State University student narrowed his focus to enhancing the biography of a person in STEM whose contributions weren’t yet fully recognized.
“I wanted to find a Black person who was making a real change in her community and deserved to get acknowledged for doing so,” explained Parham.
The student editor soon found her: Ashley Walker, an astrochemist, science communicator, and activist who co-organized #BlackinChem, #BlackInAstro, and #BlackInPhysics in response to police brutality against Black Americans, taking inspiration from the success of Black Birders Week to create dedicated space for Black scholars across these fields.
“Ashley Walker has opened a space for Black people to have access to STEM programs and opportunities to gain further knowledge,” said Parham. “It is important to improve Wikipedia’s coverage of women in STEM because Wikipedia and STEM fields are male-dominated spaces, and women are largely ignored or given little recognition, especially Black women and other women of color.”
Parham wasn’t alone in his efforts to improve Wikipedia’s coverage of STEM professionals this term. Through their Wikipedia assignments, students at postsecondary institutions nationwide have deepened and expanded Wikipedia’s biographies by both strengthening existing articles and creating new articles from scratch.
Across the country at Fayetteville State University, students spent the semester doing just that, turning their research skills toward scientists whose Wikipedia articles had room to grow.
While one student editor improved the article for Fatimah Jackson, biologist and professor at Howard University, their classmate worked to expand Wikipedia’s information about Carlos Bustamante, the UC Berkeley biophysicist whose laboratory was the first to mechanically stretch a single molecule of DNA using optical tweezers — a foundational technique for studying molecular machines like RNA polymerase and ribosomes. 
Other students improved the articles for Nii Addy, a Yale neuroscientist whose research examines the neurobiological roots of substance use disorders, depression, and anxiety, and for Dorothy J. Phillips, an American chemist. Phillips was the first Black woman to complete an undergraduate degree at Vanderbilt University in 1967, and nearly 60 years later, she became the first Black woman to serve as president of the American Chemical Society.
While some students contributed to underdeveloped articles, others built Wikipedia biographies from the ground up for STEM figures who were absent from the encyclopedia altogether.
Among the new STEM biography articles created this term:
- Emmanuel Proven-Adzri, an astrophysicist at the Ghana Space Science and Technology Centre in Accra
- Tino Nyawelo, a Sudanese professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Utah
- Omololu Akin-Ojo, a Nigerian physicist who founded the International Centre for Theoretical Physics-East African Institute for Fundamental Research in Rwanda
- Omar F. Mohammed, a physical chemist and materials scientist at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
Thanks to the efforts of student editors, information about each of these STEM professionals is now free, public, and findable by anyone with an internet connection.
We can’t wait to see which figures students will bring to Wikipedia next term!
The student work outlined in this story is part of a larger Wiki Education initiative sponsored by the Broadcom Foundation, which supports the improvement of existing biographies and the creation of new biographies of unsung figures in STEM on Wikipedia.
Interested in incorporating a Wikipedia assignment into your course? Visit teach.wikiedu.org to learn more about the free resources, digital tools, and staff support that Wiki Education offers to postsecondary instructors in the United States and Canada.
