Dr. Angela Byars-Winston Named a
Champion of Change:
Promoting STEM Equity
Champion of Change:
Promoting STEM Equity
Dr. Angela Byars-Winston was honored as a
Champion of Change at the White House on Dec. 9
for her work in getting students of color and
women more involved in STEM-related studies
Champion of Change at the White House on Dec. 9
for her work in getting students of color and
women more involved in STEM-related studies
By Jonathan Gramling
Part 2 of 2
For over 16 years, Dr. Angela Byars-Winston has worked in relative obscurity
conducting research on and creating programs to promote equity in STEM —
Science, Technology, Engineering and Math — occupations. All of that changed When
Byars-Winston was honored by President Barack Obama’s White House honored her
as a Champion of Change last December. And in collaboration with Dr. Molly Carnes,
new research and programming that Byars-Winston is working on could make a big
impact on the UW-Madison campus and beyond.
“We are focusing on how we improve gender equity at the faculty level by working
on unconscious bias,” Byars-Winston said. “One of the assumptions about why
racial/ethnic minority men and women and white women hit these ceilings in terms
of promotion and tenure and advancement into leadership positions like chairs and
deans of departments or colleges is that there are these unconscious assumptions
about competence and who belongs. You know from basic organizational
management research that organizations tend to replicate themselves. People
choose folk who looks like them and who they relate to.”
Patricia Devine, department chair of psychology, Molly Carnes, several other
colleagues and Byars-Winston have developed a two and a half hour workshop that
is evidence-based, which will be attended by members of 90 departments on the UW-
Part 2 of 2
For over 16 years, Dr. Angela Byars-Winston has worked in relative obscurity
conducting research on and creating programs to promote equity in STEM —
Science, Technology, Engineering and Math — occupations. All of that changed When
Byars-Winston was honored by President Barack Obama’s White House honored her
as a Champion of Change last December. And in collaboration with Dr. Molly Carnes,
new research and programming that Byars-Winston is working on could make a big
impact on the UW-Madison campus and beyond.
“We are focusing on how we improve gender equity at the faculty level by working
on unconscious bias,” Byars-Winston said. “One of the assumptions about why
racial/ethnic minority men and women and white women hit these ceilings in terms
of promotion and tenure and advancement into leadership positions like chairs and
deans of departments or colleges is that there are these unconscious assumptions
about competence and who belongs. You know from basic organizational
management research that organizations tend to replicate themselves. People
choose folk who looks like them and who they relate to.”
Patricia Devine, department chair of psychology, Molly Carnes, several other
colleagues and Byars-Winston have developed a two and a half hour workshop that
is evidence-based, which will be attended by members of 90 departments on the UW-
Madison campus.
“We’re talking colleague to colleague,” Byars-Winston said. “They don’t want to come in and be told that they are bad, prejudiced and
bigoted. That isn’t what they want to hear. They want to know that everyone has this, that it is part of the human psyche to categorize. The
question is what happens when you categorize in such a pattern that it gets you into misassumptions and misinformation about people.
And when you happen to be in a pattern-making position like many of our white male colleagues are, then that becomes systematically
problematic. That is how we present it.”
Once they have an understanding of the problem, then the team offers six research-based strategies to overcome the problem.
“We have this longitudinal project that began in 2008 and we are just getting the first wave of data,” Byars-Winston said. “I developed
some of the measures for that. What we are finding is that even though faculty after they go this training six months or nine months later
may not have done all of the things they said they were going to do, what they do report differently from going through the training is they
feel that the risks of making a difference and trying something different is worthwhile. And that is a huge shift because we know from
psychology — I am a psychologist by training — that there are three things that are needed to make a difference. You need to have
motivation. You need to have confidence. And you have to have actual knowledge about what you do, some actual skill sets. And I think it
is that combination that we hit in that grant.”
Byars-Winston is involved in a lot more collaborations with Carnes including the development of a video game in conjunction with people
at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery that will get the workshop materials they are doing into people’s smart phones through an
application called Pathfinder.
Byars-Winston took her daughter, Jasmine, to Washington, D.C. on December 9th to the Champions of Change recognition. For Byars-
Winston, it was an incredible experience to be honored with colleagues from across the nation.
“This was really designed to bring attention locally to the honorees because part of it is broadcast on video,” Byars-Winston said. “It is
designed to be relatable to every day people, so it wasn’t a research talk or formal in that way. Yes the award happened, but the
presentation that people saw was more about highlighting the work and in turn, hoping that it stimulates local interest. ‘Let’s put the
spotlight on the Kabzuag Vaj, Barb Bitters and Angela Byars-Winstons so people will know that this work is happening in their own
backyards and will ask how they can get involved.”
There was a second part to the ceremony that allowed the participants to talk a little shop about their areas of expertise.
“The other was a closed session by invitation only, a working session that facilitated dialogue across three topics: mentoring, culture
change for girls, especially in media images and retaining women in the STEM workplace,” Byars-Winston said. “We were assigned to
those based on our backgrounds. I was assigned to the mentoring one. I actually had the honor of starting it off. The person called me the
week before and said, ‘You’re kind of one of the leading people in the group there because you have this huge grant and you are steeped
in the literature.’ So I helped co-facilitate that. There was a wonderful breadth of people there from the private sector like Dell Company.
Several NASA astronauts were there. I didn’t know there was more than one Black male astronaut. One was named Leland Martin. There
were people from the non-profit sector who had national organizations and efforts related to STEM equity, especially in the workplace.
There were American Association of University Women, the Society for Women Engineers and all of those CEOs were there.”
In between sessions, Byars-Winston met some pretty important people in the Obama White House.
“Dr. John Holdren, who is the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) that sponsored this, personally met us in a
small group in a small room where all of the dignitaries walked,” Byars-Winston recalled. “I kept thinking any moment the President was
going to walk by. That is when Valerie Jarrett came in and shook each one of our hands. And then Dr. Holdren, a Nobel laureate, came in.
And then Dr. Rebecca Blank, the deputy secretary of the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, came. They congratulated us and that is when we got the
envelope from President Obama that had the signed letter with the original signature and the ink bleeding through the back of the letter.
His assistant who gave us the envelope acknowledged that he knew each one of us.”
Before they left, Byars-Winston and her daughter visited the King Monument on the National Mall to reflect and give tribute to the person
and the movement that made Byars-Winston’s success possible. Byars-Winston is living her dream.
“We’re talking colleague to colleague,” Byars-Winston said. “They don’t want to come in and be told that they are bad, prejudiced and
bigoted. That isn’t what they want to hear. They want to know that everyone has this, that it is part of the human psyche to categorize. The
question is what happens when you categorize in such a pattern that it gets you into misassumptions and misinformation about people.
And when you happen to be in a pattern-making position like many of our white male colleagues are, then that becomes systematically
problematic. That is how we present it.”
Once they have an understanding of the problem, then the team offers six research-based strategies to overcome the problem.
“We have this longitudinal project that began in 2008 and we are just getting the first wave of data,” Byars-Winston said. “I developed
some of the measures for that. What we are finding is that even though faculty after they go this training six months or nine months later
may not have done all of the things they said they were going to do, what they do report differently from going through the training is they
feel that the risks of making a difference and trying something different is worthwhile. And that is a huge shift because we know from
psychology — I am a psychologist by training — that there are three things that are needed to make a difference. You need to have
motivation. You need to have confidence. And you have to have actual knowledge about what you do, some actual skill sets. And I think it
is that combination that we hit in that grant.”
Byars-Winston is involved in a lot more collaborations with Carnes including the development of a video game in conjunction with people
at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery that will get the workshop materials they are doing into people’s smart phones through an
application called Pathfinder.
Byars-Winston took her daughter, Jasmine, to Washington, D.C. on December 9th to the Champions of Change recognition. For Byars-
Winston, it was an incredible experience to be honored with colleagues from across the nation.
“This was really designed to bring attention locally to the honorees because part of it is broadcast on video,” Byars-Winston said. “It is
designed to be relatable to every day people, so it wasn’t a research talk or formal in that way. Yes the award happened, but the
presentation that people saw was more about highlighting the work and in turn, hoping that it stimulates local interest. ‘Let’s put the
spotlight on the Kabzuag Vaj, Barb Bitters and Angela Byars-Winstons so people will know that this work is happening in their own
backyards and will ask how they can get involved.”
There was a second part to the ceremony that allowed the participants to talk a little shop about their areas of expertise.
“The other was a closed session by invitation only, a working session that facilitated dialogue across three topics: mentoring, culture
change for girls, especially in media images and retaining women in the STEM workplace,” Byars-Winston said. “We were assigned to
those based on our backgrounds. I was assigned to the mentoring one. I actually had the honor of starting it off. The person called me the
week before and said, ‘You’re kind of one of the leading people in the group there because you have this huge grant and you are steeped
in the literature.’ So I helped co-facilitate that. There was a wonderful breadth of people there from the private sector like Dell Company.
Several NASA astronauts were there. I didn’t know there was more than one Black male astronaut. One was named Leland Martin. There
were people from the non-profit sector who had national organizations and efforts related to STEM equity, especially in the workplace.
There were American Association of University Women, the Society for Women Engineers and all of those CEOs were there.”
In between sessions, Byars-Winston met some pretty important people in the Obama White House.
“Dr. John Holdren, who is the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) that sponsored this, personally met us in a
small group in a small room where all of the dignitaries walked,” Byars-Winston recalled. “I kept thinking any moment the President was
going to walk by. That is when Valerie Jarrett came in and shook each one of our hands. And then Dr. Holdren, a Nobel laureate, came in.
And then Dr. Rebecca Blank, the deputy secretary of the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, came. They congratulated us and that is when we got the
envelope from President Obama that had the signed letter with the original signature and the ink bleeding through the back of the letter.
His assistant who gave us the envelope acknowledged that he knew each one of us.”
Before they left, Byars-Winston and her daughter visited the King Monument on the National Mall to reflect and give tribute to the person
and the movement that made Byars-Winston’s success possible. Byars-Winston is living her dream.
