STEM & Health Equity Advocates at Yale

Our Mission:

In recognizing the adverse, harmful, and even fatal effects of racism in STEM and healthcare, our mission is to implement anti-racist education for STEM and pre-health students, expand the History of Science, Medicine, and Public Health department, and actively support and collaborate with other student-led efforts to dismantle systemic racism at Yale University.

Our Activities:

STEM Ethics Proposal
Advocacy, or Activism
Yale University, unlike other peer institutions, including Harvard University, Princeton University, and the University of Pennsylvania, lacks a dedicated STEM/pre-health ethics course requirement for STEM and pre-health majors of all backgrounds. This omission represents a significant shortcoming of Yale’s otherwise excellent STEM and pre-health course offerings and undergraduate experience. Yale students are less-prepared to cope with the ethical pressures and dilemmas of the rapidly changing 21st-century scientific landscape compared to undergraduate students at peer institutions.

As such, we propose the implementation of a required STEM/pre-health ethics course for all Yale STEM majors, following in the footsteps of recent efforts within the Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry major to require ½ credit Science and Society course, filled by a class similar to MB&B 268: Identity, Society and STEM. This proposal outlines the processes undergone by peer institutions in establishing similar courses, the history of ethics in science, the limited exposure students have to scientific ethics before beginning their Yale careers, the applications of such a course within industry, and the intersection of such a course with Yale graduate-level coursework. This proposal also includes student and professor testimony articulating the necessity of such a class within Yale’s pre-existing curriculum offerings.

Student Leaders:

Ava Boston - Co-Coordinator/Co-President Kayla Wong - Co-Coordinator/Co-President