Uncovering ‘hidden curriculum’ for those historically on outside

Jada Emodogo arrived at the recent Quantum Noir conference knowing no one.

The incoming Harvard Quantum Initiative graduate student already knew she had an interest in the field. But that wasn’t the same as feeling there may be a place for her in it.

“Being able to congregate with different professionals in the field gives me hope for the future, and it really affirms that what I want to do, and what I’m able to do, is right here,” she said.

Emodogo, a recent Jackson State University graduate, was among more than 100 attendees of the inaugural Quantum Noir conference at Harvard on June 11-14, a quantum science and engineering event aimed at students and scientists of color. Faculty from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, MIT, Princeton, Dartmouth, and many other colleges led sessions that blended overviews of the latest advances in quantum science with non-technical subjects such as entrepreneurship, venture capital, and how to navigate spaces in the field as an underrepresented minority.

The initiative was the brainchild of William Wilson, executive director of Harvard’s Center for Nanoscale Systems. A longtime supporter of the Conference for African-American Researchers in the Mathematical Sciences, Wilson dreamt for years of creating a similar event for nanoscale and quantum physics.

“This really was a missing link, in the sense that we’re not educating students in this space … and we’re letting that talent go do something else. We’re letting that talent go work on satellites, as opposed to working on semiconductors,” Wilson said.

Click here to read the full article in the Harvard Gazette.