You Oughta Know: Dr. Calandra Tate

by Symphony, WAOD Contributor


This blog was created in order to "combat the destructive portrayals of African American women in popular culture". Everyday, cloaked in anonymity, Black women around the world combat those negative and destructive images that permeate society's view of 'the Black woman'.


They fight these images with their intelligence, perseverance, loyalty, strength, vision, creativity, passion, and ambition. Their success should not be invisible. Instead, it should be celebrated.


On Fridays we will combat the negative portrayals of Black women with positive, successful, inspiring and fabulous Black women who excel in industries from the Arts to Zoology and everything in between.


Lets celebrate!

Dr. Calandra Tate, Ph.D. graduated from Xavier University and went on to earn her doctorate in applied mathematics from the University of Maryland in College Park this month. With her achievement Dr. Tate joins a distinguished and small group of Black women. According to The National Science Foundation 4,300 doctorates in mathematics and statistics were awarded in the 8 years between 1998-2005, only 48 were earned by African-American women.


She teaches statistics and probability at the U.S. Military Academy (West Point) through a special assignment with her employer, the U.S. Army Research Laboratory in Aldelphi, Md. It is at the research lab where she thought of her dissertation topic - “An Investigation of the Relationship Between Automated Machine Translation Evaluation Metrics and User Performance on an Information Extraction Task”.


Tate started her freshman year at Xavier University pre-med but before the year's end switched to mathematics. At the same time she was wooed by the language department to become a French major. She studied French since grade school and was an exchange student in France between her junior and senior years of high school.


While at Xavier, Tate was active in student government and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. Her senior year, she received two coveted Xavier awards: the Martin Luther King Jr. Peace Award for community service and the Mother Agatha Ryan Award for exemplifying the spirit and standards of the school through “reverence, personal integrity, loyalty, service and scholarship.”


Read more about Dr. Calandra Tate here.


GIRLS AND SCIENCE: There is an abundance of career opportunities in the science and technology industries. Girls are turned off to and discouraged by science and math at early ages. If a young woman wants to participate in those industries it is important a love of science is fostered early. She may not choose a career in math or science but if she is frustrated at an early age the choice won't be hers to make.

Read this article from the Orlando Sentinel: Fewer women choosing careers in computer science.


Below are some Web sites dedicated to encouraging and empowering girls in the science field.

Girls Go Tech
Sally Ride Science
Girl Start
Techbridge Girls
Women in Tech (Hawaii)
Three Guineas Fund
Expanding Your Horizons
Girls and Science
Alberta Women's Science Network

In addition to "You Ought to Know" Fridays. We Are pleased to announce that we have two new WAOD contributors: Deidra from Black and Missing is the new WAOD Weeping Wednesdays Contributor- She'll be covering all of the tragic and horrific crimes we have been bombarded with. We'll all cry together on Wednesdays to keep the blog from turning into a crime blotter. I will be forwarding all of your crime story tips to Mz Deidra or you can submit them directly to her- let her know its for WAODWW or WW on WAOD.

We also want to welcome Tami from the blog What Tami Said, we haven't quite defined her role yet, but she is currently hard at work on a project for Black History Month. If you know of an African American woman who has done something"historic" contact Tami over at WTS and offer a suggestion. Welcome to WAOD Deidra and Tami!

Sincerely,

Gem2001(WAOD's Benevolent Dictator)