Maia Weinstock Explained

Maia Weinstock is an American science writer and Lego enthusiast who resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She graduated from Brown University in 1999,[1] and is the Deputy Editor of MIT News.[2] [3]

Biography

Before working at MIT, she worked at BrainPOP,[4] and was an editor for SPACE.com and other science publications.[5]

In 2014, Weinstock was cited by Judith Newman of The New York Times as "a Wikipedian who has been instrumental in raising awareness" of the gender imbalance on that online encyclopedia; her article on how notability is determined on Wikipedia immediately provoked other Wikipedia editors to create a page about Newman.[4] [6]

In addition to her editing work, Weinstock has been an editor of Wikipedia for a number of years, and has been involved in efforts to reduce the gender gap among editors and articles that occur on the site. This work includes working at edit-a-thons on Ada Lovelace Day, as well.[7]

A fan of Lego mini-figures, she first started building them for living scientists, the first being her friend Carolyn Porco. Eventually, this included a submission to the Lego Ideas contest called the "Legal Justice League", which was designed to look like a courtroom built out of Lego bricks, and contained miniature versions of Sandra Day O'Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan.[8] The submission was declined by LEGO as being too political, which led to an increase in publicity for the project, and eventually led to a submission with generic justices. A Boston Globe reporter described Weinstock's apartment as having "[s]tacks of heads and hairstyles, torsos and legs and arms, a pint-sized Frankenstein's workshop stored in little plastic bins".[9]

In March 2017, Lego announced that it would be making a "Women of NASA" set, based on a design Weinstock had submitted.[10]

In 2022 MIT Press published Weinstock's 320-page biography of Mildred Dresselhaus.[11] [12]

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. News: Goodbye, Columbus. 30 April 2015. Brown University Alumni Magazine. August 2009.
  2. Web site: Who We Are. MIT News. 30 April 2015.
  3. News: Women in science target Wikipedia. 26 April 2015. Portland Press Herald. 16 October 2013.
  4. Web site: Newman. Judith. Wikipedia, What Does Judith Newman Have to Do to Get a Page?. 30 April 2015. The New York Times. 8 January 2015.
  5. News: Index. 26 April 2015. 2015. 5 April 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150405135740/http://maiaw.com/index.html. dead.
  6. Web site: Wiki-Validation: A Wikipedia Page for Judith Newman Is Approved . The New York Times . January 16, 2014. April 30, 2015 . Newman . Judith.
  7. News: Ziv. Stav. Legal Justice League Lego Maker on Writing Women Into History. 4 April 2015. Newsweek. 18 March 2015.
  8. News: Palmer. Anthony. Lego Says You Can't Build That — Because Of Politics. 4 April 2015. NPR. 13 March 2015.
  9. News: Weiss. Joanna. Dreaming of Lego equality. 4 April 2015. Boston Globe. 4 April 2015.
  10. Web site: Women Of NASA To Be Immortalized — In Lego Form . Kennedy . Merrit . . 1 March 2017.
  11. Book: Carbon Queen: The Remarkable Life of Nanoscience Pioneer Mildred Dresselhaus. 9780262368285. Weinstock. Maia. March 2022. MIT Press . (ebook)
  12. Nonfiction Book Review of Carbon Queen: The Remarkable Life of Nanoscience Pioneer Mildred Dresselhaus by Maia Weinstock (320p) hbk ISBN 978-0-262-04643-5. Publishers Weekly. November 4, 2021.