15 November 2025 — 12:00 noon — GAR 1.102 [note room change]

Brooke Johnson (Rice Univ.)

“General Chemistry for Who? Exploring the Intersection of Chemistry and Black History”

General chemistry, the foundational course for STEM majors, is notoriously seen as a gatekeeper. This notion is especially prevalent among students from communities that have been historically excluded from the modern scientific enterprise though nonetheless a part of its origins. How might transcending traditionally disparate disciplines help us re-imagine alternative and more inclusive introductions to chemistry and STEM?  AfroChemistry (the study of Black-life matter) is an introductory, interdisciplinary science course in which students acquire intro-level understandings of chemical concepts while exploring how those concepts intersect with important questions in Black studies and illuminate issues of racial justice in the US (such as health disparities and environmental crises). This lecture will focus on the role of pedagogy at the intersection of chemistry and Black history in helping to address inequities in chemical education, with particular attention on how the contextualization of modern science and the centering of the tradition of pioneering Black chemists can inspire diverse students. In view of demographic disparities observed in the academic fields of chemistry and chemical education in the US, this talk aims to illustrate how creative and multi-disciplinary courses can be an important tool for inspiring retention, diversity and excellence in science and in the academy more broadly.
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Brooke Johnson is a Preceptor in Chemistry at Rice University. She joined Rice’s Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion after earning her PhD in Chemistry from Princeton in 2023.

1 November 2024 — 12:00 noon — GAR 4.100

Alyssa Peterson (UT)

“A Shaky Life: Jamaica and the 1692 Port Royal Earthquake”

In this second chapter from my dissertation, I explore the connection between new environments and old sources of knowledge in Jamaica, especially surrounding the discussions after the devastating 1692 earthquake that sank Port Royal and shook the entire island. I argue that the environment and descriptions coming from Jamaica did not resemble Europe or European experiences and were therefore difficult for the English to place into their contemporary scientific theories. As a result, the English used them to support emerging theories about warmer climates leading to moral and physical weakness, arguing that the earthquake was God’s punishment for these weaknesses. The English, both in Jamaica and in England, also applied contemporary paradigms to explain the reports, even if what they saw or read was not well known or previously experienced. However, Jamaican colonists began to separate themselves from English observers through their explanations and incorporation of local knowledge to come up with a uniquely Jamaican (and Caribbean) explanation for events that were not always applicable to the wider British Atlantic world.

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Alyssa Peterson is a graduate student in the UT History Department. She is now completing her dissertation on ideas about connections between earthquakes and health in the 18th century British Caribbean.