Opinion: The Politics of Science and Racism

Sadye is a Latina and first-generation American. She is a Senior Research Associate in the Neurogenetics of Language Laboratory at The Rockefeller University, a fellow with New York University’s Center for Ballet and the Arts, and the program director for the Vertebrate Genomes Project (VGP). She earned a master’s degree in physical therapy from the University of Central Florida. She then completed a master’s degree in public health leadership and a doctoral degree in human movement science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Sadye seeks to address the principles and practices that shape STEM culture as the chair for the Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee for the Earth Biogenome Project.

Erich, an alumnus of the Rockefeller University and former professor at Duke University, returned to Rockefeller in 2016 as a tenured professor heading the new Laboratory of Neurogenetics of Language. As an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 2008, Erich is the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Science Foundation’s Alan T. Waterman Award, an NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, the 2015 Ernest Everett Just Award from the American Society for Cell Biology, and a 2019 NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award. He is also a member of the Hunter College Alumni Hall of Fame. As co-leader of an avian genomics consortium consisting of more than 200 scientists in 20 countries, he oversaw the sequencing of genomes from representative species of every avian order—48 genomes in all. Erich also now chairs the Vertebrate Genomes Project, formed with the goal of assembling high-quality genomes for all 70,000 vertebrate species on Earth. Jarvis also serves on The Scientist’s editorial advisory board.