How to Recruit and Retain Underrepresented Minorities

I became interested in science in the 1970s, when African Americans and U.S. Hispanics comprised only 5 percent of the STEM workforce: As a third grader growing up in Oak Cliff, which at the time was a predominately African American community in Dallas, Texas, I was given a class assignment as part of my school’s talented and gifted program to identify a career that I wanted to pursue and then to conduct independent research on it. Some kids weren’t sure what they wanted to do, but for me, that was easy: I wanted to be the “next” Jacques Cousteau. I watched the TV icon and oceanographer on PBS almost every Saturday. He worked with people of various nationalities, who spoke with different accents, as they explored exotic underwater locations. Inspired by his program, each year from third through twelfth grade, I conducted a new independent project related to the ocean.