Marie Hicks, assistant professor of history of technology at Lewis College of Human Sciences, was an invited speaker at Harvard University’s “From Missing Persons to Critical Biography: Reframing Minority Identity in the History of Science, Technology and Medicine,” held October 13-15. The workshop brought together leading scholars from multiple fields for a discussion about the underlying causes of invisibility and lack of representation of minorities in STEM fields in the past and present.

During the October 14 session, Hicks gave the presentation, “Examining the Critical in ‘Critical Biography,’” which discussed gender, queerness, race, and the benefits and ethical difficulties of using biography as a tool for changing current paradigms of structural discrimination in STEM.

Funded by the National Science Foundation, the workshop was organized by the Project on Race & Gender in Science & Medicine at the Harvard’s Hutchins Center for African American Research. More information about the workshop can be found on Twitter by searching for the #critbio hashtag.