Home-grown scientists; national labs scramble to produce more U.S.-born scientists of color

Black Issues in Higher Education, Sept 17, 1998 by Roberto Rodriguez

National labs scramble to produce more U.S.-born scientist of color

Most people associate the Los Alamos National Laboratories [LANL] as the place where the first atomic bomb was built. Officials at LANL, however, assert that their new mission is more in the realm of environmental cleanup, rather than nuclear destruction.

During the summer, LANL, like other national laboratories around the country, engages in another mission -- expanding the number of U.S.-born minorities in science and technology fields.

Many experts perceive the scarcity of U.S.-born students of color in the scientific pipeline as a national crisis. Although they cite efforts by government and industry to educate students of color, they say that these efforts are not producing anything near the numbers that are needed to bring about equity any time soon.

And the abundance of foreign scholars entering the pipeline only adds to the problem. Today, according to Michael Chapman, the immediate past-president of the National Association of Scientists and Engineers, 50 percent of the Ph.D. students in this country are foreign-born.

"This is ,going to kill the country. It's simply bringing in cheap labor. This practice is good in the short run, but in the long term, it's a disaster. We have to educate and train our own. We have to be masters of our fate," Chapman says.

And that problem is particularly acute where U.S.-born minorities are concerned. Monica Palacios, associate director of the Center for the Advancement of Hispanics in Science and Engineering Education, says that one of the primary problems is that American society is not investing in its youth.

"Companies want to hire people from all over the world rather than train students who were born and bred in the United States," she says.

Palacios says that the reason companies do this is because they can underpay people from other countries. She says there is a direct correlation between the dearth of people of color in science and technology and the amount of foreigners obtaining Ph.D.s in U.S. universities.

Dr. John Alderete, president of the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in the Sciences, said that the issues regarding the shortage of people of color in science and technology are quite complex. But regardless, he characterized it as "a bleak picture," saying that U.S. companies don't actually believe in higher education.

"They go after undergraduates and hire them after they get their degrees. Once they have jobs, we lose them. That's why they don't get their Ph.D.s. Instead of recruiting [at the baccalaureate level], the companies should be encouraging [students of color] to get their Ph.D.s," says Alderete.

Changing an Image

But LANL appears to be changing its image -- and may be helping to improve the pipeline flow as far as American-born minorities are concerned. Like other institutions, LANL hosts summer programs. But learning the finer points of nuclear bomb-making techniques is not required reading. Instead, LANL's summer interns are taught the latest technology -- including technology that will assist in cleaning up their communities.

Robert Marquez, a chemistry graduate student at New Mexico State University has been associated with LANL since 1995. The practical application of his studies involves work in Juarez, Mexico, known as the ladrillo -- or brick project. Its objective is to help lessen the toxicity of the brick-making process -- a crude process that historically has greatly contributed to the pollution of the Juarez-El Paso, Texas, metropolitan region.

"In making bricks, they have traditionally burned whatever they could find -- including wood and tires -- which produce thick, black smoke," he says.

Marquez, who is of American Indian and Mexican heritage, has created a clay filter that, when attached to the traditional kiln, virtually eliminates the toxic emissions that are normally produced. Other methods have been tried, but they have not been adopted by the local workforce because they are too costly and too alien to the traditional process of brick-making, he says. With the filter, everything else remains the same, except that pollution is virtually eliminated.

Marquez was recently recognized for his work at a recent meeting of the Science and Technology Base Programs/University Programs, which works with students affiliated with LANL, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Sandia National Lab. The objective of STBP-UP is basically to increase the number of people of color, students from HBCUs, and women at these laboratories.

Elana Clemons, who recently graduated from Hampton University and also participated in the STBP-UP program at LANL -- along with more than 100 other students -- said that her work, which involved the experimental use of lasers, was very exciting. She did note, however, that because of the nature of the classified work that goes on at LANL, many of the participants don't know the goals of the big project of which their work is but a small part.