When Jessica Wade was invited to Buckingham Palace to receive the prestigious British Empire Medal, she stood out for being a young woman honored for her contributions to science.
Ironically, she was being honored for trying to change that.
Wade, 33, physicist based in London, has become something of a phenomenon herself in her very personal campaign to bring more girls to study and work in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).
Jessica Wade has written more than 1,600 Wikipedia entries about long-ignored female scientists, and she has firm beliefs about how to support girls interested in the field.
Wade gained notice in her 20s when she began writing the Wikipedia biographies about female and minority scientists who never got their due — from employers, from other scientists, from the public.
As her Wikipedia entries climbed into the dozens and then into the hundreds, she spoke and wrote more about gender equality in science. She won awards and medals and was cited by Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia.
However, not all of Wiki-world was happy with her. Several of her entries were deleted by other Wikimedians, as the most influential contributors and editors are called. She told TODAY.com that they said a handful of the women she wrote up were not all that well-known. Wade says that’s the problem.
One example was Clarice Phelps. Wade heard about the young African American nuclear chemist and wrote a Wikipedia bio describing her work on a team that discovered a new periodic table element at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.
The Phelps entry bounced on and off Wikipedia as critics deleted it and Wade defended it. Wade won in the end, and Phelps’ entry is back on Wikipedia for good.
Meanwhile, Wade’s own Wikipedia entry — written by others — has grown to 10 printed pages.
As Wade pursues her effort to make sure female scientists are known, she also has beliefs about how to make sure the next generation gets the support it needs.
Jessica Wade said girls don’t need “whiz-bang” experiments at school assemblies: Visiting scientists do their show, pack up, depart and nothing changes. Instead, girls and students of color need to be coached and mentored about what to study and when.
“People assume girls don’t choose science because they’re not inspired,” Wade said in a recent interview. “Girls are already interested. It’s more about making students aware of the different careers in science and getting parents and teachers on board.”
Women make up only 28% of the U.S. workforce in STEM, according to the American Association of University Women, and only 1 in 5 current engineering or computer science majors are women. Women in STEM earn $60,000 a year, compared to $85,000 for men, the nonprofit group says.