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Undisciplined: Asian-American Women In STEM And White Men Named John

When Athena Castro thinks about the makeup of research spaces, she sees a paradox. Asian women are simultaneously overrepresented in one way and under represented in another. This week, we’re talking to Castro about the intersectional challenges faced by Asian women in science.

Castro says that, for Asian-American female doctoral students, the complex layering and weaving of these identities involves a constant process of negotiation — a process that she explores in a new study in the journal “Science Studies and Science Education" called “Asian-American women in STEM in the lab with White Men Named John."

Matthew LaPlante has reported on ritual infanticide in Northern Africa, insurgent warfare in the Middle East, the legacy of genocide in Southeast Asia, and gang violence in Central America. But a few years back, something donned on him: Maybe the news doesn't have to be brutally depressing all the time. Today, he balances his continuing work on more heartbreaking subjects by writing books about the intersection of science, human health and society, including the New York Times best-selling Lifespan with geneticist David Sinclair and the Nautilus Award-winning Longevity Plan with cardiologist John Day. His first solo book, Superlative, looks at what scientists are learning by studying organisms that have evolved in record-setting ways, and his is currently at work on another book about embracing the inevitability of human-caused climate change with an optimistic outlook on the future.