Jess Wade Explained

Jess Wade
Birth Name:Jessica Alice Feinmann Wade
Birth Place:Manchester, England
Thesis Url:http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/56219
Thesis Title:Nanometrology for controlling and probing organic semiconductors and devices
Thesis Year:2016
Doctoral Advisor:Ji-Seon Kim
Education:Imperial College London (MSc, PhD)
Fields:Materials science
Chiral materials
Circular polarisation
Workplaces:Imperial College London
Known For:Plastic electronics
Public engagement
WISE Campaigning

Jessica Alice Feinmann Wade (born October 1988)[1] is a British physicist in the Blackett Laboratory at Imperial College London, specialising in Raman spectroscopy. Her research investigates polymer-based organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). Her public engagement work in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) advocates for women in physics as well as tackling systemic biases such as gender and racial bias on Wikipedia.[2] [3] [4]

Early life and education

Wade is the daughter of two physicians,[5] and her grandfather Leslie Feinmann was also a physician who was born in a Jewish ghetto in Manchester to a Russian-speaking mother and a father of Lithuanian Jewish and German Jewish descent.[6] [7] She was educated at South Hampstead High School, graduating in 2007. Wade subsequently enrolled in a foundation course in art and design at the Chelsea College of Art and Design, and in 2012 completed a Master of Science (MSci) degree in physics at Imperial College London. She continued at Imperial, completing her PhD in physics in 2016, where her work in nanometrology in organic semiconductors was supervised by Ji-Seon Kim.

Research and career

Wade's research interests are in materials science, chiral materials and circular polarisation., Wade is a postdoctoral research associate in plastic electronics in the solid-state physics group at Imperial College London, focusing on developing and characterising light-emitting polymer thin films, working with Alasdair Campbell and Matthew Fuchter.[8] Wade and coworkers have recently discovered how to template chiral materials at functional interfaces,[9] paving the way toward tunable chiroptical technologies.

, according to Web of Science, she has published 59 items and been cited 1,124 times.[10]

Public engagement

Wade has contributed to public engagement to increase gender equality in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects. She represented the UK on the United States Department of State funded International Visitor Leadership Program Hidden No More, and served on the WISE Campaign Young Women's Board and Women's Engineering Society (WES) Council, working with teachers across the country through the Stimulating Physics Network (including keynote talks at education fairs and teacher conferences). Wade has been critical of expensive campaigns to encourage girls into science where there is an implication that only a small minority would be interested, or that girls can study the "chemical composition of lipsticks and nail varnish". She estimates that £5m or £6m is spent in the UK to promote a scientific career for women but with little measurement of the results.

Wade coordinated a team for the 6th International Women in Physics Conference, resulting in an invitation to discuss the Institute of Physics (IOP) gender balance work in Germany. She also supports the engagement of school students through school activities and festivals, and the organisation of a series of events for girls at Imperial College London, which she has funded with grants from the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng), the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) and the Biochemical Society. In 2015 Wade won the science engagement activity I'm a Scientist, Get me out of here! and received £500, which she used to run a greenlight4girls day in the Department of Physics at Imperial College London. She has also written a children's book on materials and nanoscience called Nano: The Spectacular Science of the Very (Very) Small. The book is illustrated by Melissa Castrillón and is published by Walker Books.[11]

Wade serves on the IOP London and South East Committee, the IOP Women in Physics Committee and the Juno transparency and opportunity committee at Imperial. She cites her influences as Sharmadean Reid, Lesley Cohen, Jenny Nelson and Angela Saini, particularly her book Inferior. Her outreach work has been covered by NPR, the BBC,[12] Sky News, HuffPost, ABC News, Physics World, El País, CNN, Nature,[13] New Scientist,[14] and The Guardian.

Wade was interviewed as part of TEDx London Women, held on 1 December 2018.[15] [16] With Ben Britton and Christopher Jackson, she co-authored "The reward and risk of social media for academics" in the journal Nature Reviews Chemistry.[17]

Wikipedia contributions

See also: Gender bias on Wikipedia. Wade has made a large contribution to a Wikipedia campaign that encourages the creation of Wikipedia articles about notable female academics, in order to promote female role models in STEM. Wade has created new Wikipedia biographical articles to raise the profile of minorities in STEM.[18] [19] As of February 2020, she had written over 900 biographies on Wikipedia.[20] By January 2021, this figure had risen to 1,200.[21] By February 2024, it was over 2,100.[22]

On 12 April 2019, The Washington Post published an op-ed titled "The black hole photo is just one example of championing women in science",[23] co-authored by Zaringhalam and Wade, advocating for increased recognition for women who contribute to science. After the first image of a black hole was released, media coverage celebrated Katie Bouman's role leading the creation of the image processing algorithm.[24] The op-ed emphasized the power of social media like Twitter and collaborative information repositories like Wikipedia for crediting women's scientific contributions.

As an example of insufficient coverage in the English-language Wikipedia of women in science, the article points to the deletion of the biography of Clarice Phelps.[25] Wade created a short Wikipedia biography of Phelps in September 2018.[26] The deletion of that article on 11 February 2019[27] led to a prolonged editorial discussion and its repeated restoration and re-deletion.[28] Katrina Krämer wrote in Chemistry World:[29] Wade told Chemistry World she believes such omissions of scientific researchers from coverage in Wikipedia are regrettable, stating her impression that it accepts entries for even the most obscure popular-media figures. By January 2020, there was a consensus to restore the article, as by then new sources had become available.[30] As of 2019, of the 600 articles about female scientists Wade had written, 6 had been deleted for not meeting Wikipedia's criteria for notability.

Awards and honours

Wade has received several awards for contributions to science, science communication, diversity, and inclusion. In 2015, Wade was awarded the Institute of Physics Early Career Physics Communicator Prize and the Imperial College Union award for contribution to college life, and was the winner of the Colour Zone in I'm a Scientist, Get Me Out of Here, an online science engagement project run by Mangorolla CIC. The next year, Wade received the Institute of Physics's Jocelyn Bell Burnell Medal and Prize for Women in Physics 2016.

In 2017, Wade won the Robert Perrin Award for Materials Science from the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, and Imperial College's Julia Higgins Medal in recognition of her work to support gender equality. She was invited to the interdisciplinary science conference Science Foo Camp at the Googleplex in California.

In 2018, Wade won the Daphne Jackson Medal and Prize for "acting as an internationally-recognised ambassador for STEM". In December she was named as one of Nature's 10 people who mattered in science that year.[31] She received an honourable mention in the Wikimedian of the Year award by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, for her "year long effort to write about underrepresented scientists and engineers on Wikipedia", and the following year was chosen as Wikimedian of the Year by her national chapter, Wikimedia UK.[32]

Wade was awarded the British Empire Medal (BEM) in the 2019 Birthday Honours for services to gender diversity in science.[33] Her employer honoured her that year with its Leadership Award for Societal Engagement.[34] Also in 2019, Wade was named as the 44th "Most Influential Woman in UK Tech" by Computer Weekly.[35] During the same year, Casio released a scientific calculator in Spain bearing Wade's picture in a series of 12 calculators commemorating historically notable female scientists.[36]

In 2023, she was one of the six women chosen by Nature to comment on their plans for International Women's Day. The others were Gihan Kamel, Martina Anto-Ocrah, Sandra Diaz, Aster Gebrekirstos and Tanya Monro.[37]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Jessica Alice Feinmann WADE . gov.uk. Companies House. London. 2022 . 23 October 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20221024022325/https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/officers/YoCfN1ydjKsT5eNdYPPTNgVKbqk/appointments. 2022-10-24.
  2. News: Wade. Jessica. 2019. This is why I've written 500 biographies of female scientists on Wikipedia. independent.co.uk. The Independent. https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220608/https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/science-women-wikipedia-biography-sexism-academia-physics-a-level-a8773631.html . 8 June 2022 . subscription . live.
  3. Web site: Curtis. Cara. 2019. This physicist has written over 500 biographies of women scientists on Wikipedia. thenextweb.com. The Next Web. "Out of the 700 entries Wade has published so far, six biographies have been removed.". 10 June 2019. 4 August 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190804235220/https://thenextweb.com/tech/2019/03/19/physicist-has-written-over-500-biographies-female-scientists-wikipedia/. live.
  4. O’Reilly. Nicola. Why we're creating Wikipedia profiles for BAME scientists. Nature. 2019. 0028-0836. 10.1038/d41586-019-00812-8. 150864233. 29 June 2020. 2 August 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20200802114942/https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00812-8. live.
  5. Highfield. Roger. Wade. Jess. We're all to blame for Wikipedia's huge sexism problem. Wired. 4 July 2019. 4 July 2019. 2 August 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190802164244/https://www.wired.co.uk/article/jess-wade-wikipedia-diversity. live.
  6. Web site: Elozor Leslie Feinmann | RCP Museum . 12 October 2022 . 13 October 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20221013160401/https://history.rcplondon.ac.uk/inspiring-physicians/elozor-leslie-feinmann . live .
  7. Web site: Dr Jess Wade ‍ on Twitter: "My grandfather "born into a Jewish ghetto in Manchester, of a speaking mother + father" #1DayWithoutUs" / Twitter. 12 October 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20221012234429/https://mobile.twitter.com/jesswade/status/834158314099507202 . 1 October 2023. 12 October 2022 .
  8. Book: Wade. Jess. Campbell. Alasadair. Wan. Li. Fuchter. Matthew. So. Franky. Adachi. Chihaya. Kim. Jang-Joo. Jang-Joo. Kim. Chihaya. Adachi. Franky. So. Organic Light Emitting Materials and Devices XXII. Strong induced chiroptical effects in light emitting polymer blends (Conference Presentation). 2018. 9. 10.1117/12.2321171. 9781510620438. 139451421.
  9. Wade. Jess. Salerno. Francesco. Kilbride. Rachel C.. Controlling anisotropic properties by manipulating the orientation of chiral small molecules. Nature Chemistry. 2022. 14 . 12 . 1383–1389 . 10.1038/s41557-022-01044-6. 36302869 . 2022NatCh..14.1383W . 10044/1/99670 . 253183615 . free.
  10. Web Of Science, accessed 1 November 2022. Note that WOS returns J Wade and JF Wade in a simple search for "Wade, Jessica".
  11. Web site: Walker Books – Nano: The Spectacular Science of the Very (Very) Small. 9 October 2023. walker.co.uk.
  12. News: Women in science: 'We want to be accepted into the club'. Marie. Jackson. Jennifer. Scott. 2018. BBC News. bbc.co.uk. 17 December 2018. 11 December 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20201211031617/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45717060. live.
  13. Wade. Jess. Zaringhalam. Maryam. Why we're editing women scientists onto Wikipedia. Nature. 2018. Springer Nature. 10.1038/d41586-018-05947-8. 186774096. 17 December 2018. 11 December 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20191211040212/https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05947-8. live.
  14. Web site: Jess Wade's one-woman mission to diversify Wikipedia's science stories. Joshua. Howgego. New Scientist. 29 June 2020. 2 August 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20200802141128/https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24532680-800-jess-wades-one-woman-mission-to-diversify-wikipedias-science-stories/. live.
  15. Web site: TEDxLondonWomen #ShowingUp . 15 January 2019 . 1 October 2020 . https://web.archive.org/web/20201001161735/https://tedxlondon.com/attend/TEDxLondonWomen2018/ . live .
  16. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUpOqdB6RDU A voice for diversity in science
  17. Wade . Jessica . Jackson . Chris . Britton . Ben . 18 July 2019 . The reward and risk of social media for academics . Nature Reviews Chemistry . en . 3 . 8 . 459–461 . 10.1038/s41570-019-0121-3 . 10044/1/71949 . 198137018 . 2397-3358. free .
  18. News: Why are so few women biographies included in Wikipedia?. BBC Newsday. 25 July 2019. 28 July 2019. She's been writing biographies of women and other minorities in science and engineering since 2017 and adds a new entry almost on a daily basis.. 3 August 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190803034015/https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07hs3sn. live.
  19. Web site: This Scientist Is Updating Wikipedia with Women, POC, & LGBTQ+ History. 2 January 2019. pride.com. Zachary. Zane. 2 January 2019. 20 August 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20200820105152/https://www.pride.com/news/2019/1/02/scientist-updating-wikipedia-women-poc-lgbtq-history. live.
  20. Web site: Physicist writes 900 Wikipedia entries to boost diversity in science . ITV News . 11 February 2020 . 13 February 2020 . en . 27 May 2020 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200527160929/https://www.itv.com/news/2020-02-11/physicist-writes-900-wikipedia-entries-to-boost-diversity-in-science/ . live .
  21. News: One Page At A Time, Jess Wade Is Changing Wikipedia. Emily. Kwong. Short Wave. NPR. 4 January 2021. 30 July 2022. en. 30 July 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20220730015241/https://www.npr.org/2021/01/04/953334366/one-page-at-a-time-jess-wade-is-changing-wikipedia. live.
  22. News: Ancient Roman Writings Revealed . Victoria . Gill. BBC Inside Science. 8 February 2024 .
  23. News: Zaringhalam . Maryam . Wade . Jess . 12 April 2019 . The black hole photo is just one example of championing women in science . The Washington Post . live . subscription . 24 February 2020 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190416073320/https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/it-matters-who-we-champion-in-science/2019/04/12/50a1781a-5d3d-11e9-9625-01d48d50ef75_story.html . 16 April 2019.
  24. News: Ellis-Petersen . Hannah . 2019-04-11 . Katie Bouman: the 29-year-old whose work led to first black hole photo . en-GB . . 2023-10-29 . 0261-3077.
  25. News: Phoebe. Southworth . Physicist accuses Wikipedia editors of sexism after female scientists she wrote profiles for tagged 'not notable enough' . telegraph.co.uk . . 7 December 2019 . 24 February 2020 . 27 November 2020 . https://web.archive.org/web/20201127032027/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/12/07/physicist-embroiled-sexism-row-wikipedia-female-scientists-wrote/ . live .
  26. Web site: A deleted Wikipedia page speaks volumes about its biggest problem . Claire. Jarvis. Fastcompany.com . 25 April 2019 . 1 March 2020 . 29 April 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190429091704/https://www.fastcompany.com/90339700/a-deleted-wikipedia-page-speaks-volumes-about-its-biggest-problem . live .
  27. Web site: Jarvis . Claire . 25 April 2019 . What a Deleted Profile Tells Us About Wikipedia's Diversity Problem . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20190428162539/https://undark.org/2019/04/25/wikipedia-diversity-problem/ . 28 April 2019 . 24 February 2020 . Undark.org.
  28. Web site: Wikipedia doesn't think this Black female scientist is notable enough for a page. 29 April 2019. dailydot.com. The Daily Dot. Samira. Sadeque. 6 March 2020. 30 April 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190430042820/https://www.dailydot.com/irl/wikipedia-clarice-phelps/. live.
  29. News: Krämer . Katrina . 3 July 2019 . Female scientists' pages keep disappearing from Wikipedia – what's going on? . Chemistry World . Royal Society of Chemistry . live . 3 July 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20201101094843/https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/female-scientists-pages-keep-disappearing-from-wikipedia--whats-going-on/3010664.article . 1 November 2020.
  30. Web site: Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2020 January Wikipedia. en.wikibedia.ru. 9 March 2020. 2 August 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20200802175925/http://en.wikibedia.ru/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2020_January#31_January_2020. live.
  31. Elizabeth. Gibney. Elizabeth Gibney. Ewen. Callaway. David . Cyranoski. Nisha . Gaind. Jeff . Tollefson. Rachel . Courtland. Yao-Hua . Law. Brendan . Maher. Holly . Else. Davide. Castelvecchi. 2018. Ten people who mattered this year. 10.1038/d41586-018-07683-5 . 30563976. Nature. 564. 325–335. 7736. free.
  32. Web site: UK Wikimedian of the Year 2019 . Wikimedia.org.uk . 18 July 2019 . 5 February 2020 . 17 May 2020 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200517144654/https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/UK_Wikimedian_of_the_Year_2019 . live .
  33. Web site: Birthday Honours lists 2019. 7 June 2019. gov.uk. 7 June 2019. 5 October 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20201005142327/https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/birthday-honours-lists-2019. live.
  34. Web site: Societal engagement recognised in 2019 President's Awards for Excellence. 7 June 2019. Imperial College London – News. 7 June 2019. 20 August 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20200820110104/https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/191487/societal-engagement-recognised-2019-presidents-awards/. live.
  35. Web site: Computer Weekly announces the Most Influential Women in UK Tech 2019. McDonald. Clare. 25 September 2019. ComputerWeekly.com. en. 23 January 2020. 25 November 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20201125002059/https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252471156/Computer-Weekly-announces-the-Most-Influential-Women-in-UK-Tech-2019. live.
  36. News: Perla Mateo . Maria Pilar . Calculadoras ilustradas con científicas . 28 July 2020 . . 19 February 2019 . es . Calculators illustrated with women scientists . 17 October 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20221017141340/https://www.heraldo.es/noticias/sociedad/2019/02/19/calculadoras-ilustradas-con-cientificas-casio-1293482-310.html . live .
  37. 2023-03-08 . Celebrate women in science — today, and every day . Nature . en . 615 . 7951 . 187 . 10.1038/d41586-023-00670-5. 36890375 . 2023Natur.615..187. . 257380632 . free .

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