Emily Temple-Wood (born May 24, 1994)
is an American
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
editor who goes by the name of Keilana on the site. She is known for her efforts to counter the effects and causes of
gender bias on Wikipedia
Gender bias on Wikipedia, also known as the Wikipedia gender gap, refers to the fact that Wikipedia contributors are mostly male, that relatively few biographies on Wikipedia are about women, and that topics of interest to women are less well-cov ...
, particularly through the creation of articles about
women in science
The presence of women in science spans the earliest times of the history of science wherein they have made significant contributions. Historians with an interest in gender and science have researched the scientific endeavors and accomplishments ...
. She was declared a joint recipient of the 2016
Wikipedian of the Year
The Wikimedian of the Year is an annual award that honors Wikipedia editors and other contributors to Wikimedia projects to highlight major achievements within the Wikimedia movement, established in August 2011 by Wikipedia's co-founder Jimmy Wa ...
award, by
Jimmy Wales
Jimmy Donal Wales (born August 7, 1966), also known on Wikipedia by the pseudonym Jimbo, is an American-British Internet entrepreneur, webmaster, and former financial trader. He is a co-founder of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedi ...
, at
Wikimania
Wikimania is the Wikimedia movement's annual conference, organized by volunteers and hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. Topics of presentations and discussions include Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia, other wikis, open-source software, f ...
on June 24, 2016.
Early life
Temple-Wood attended
Avery Coonley School
The Avery Coonley School (ACS), commonly called Avery Coonley, is an independent, coeducational day school serving academically gifted students in preschool through eighth grade (approximately ages 3 to 14), and is located in Downers Grove, DuPage ...
in
Downers Grove
Downers Grove is a village in DuPage County, Illinois, United States. It was founded in 1832 by Pierce Downer, whose surname serves as the eponym for the village. It is a south-west suburb of Chicago. The village is located between I-88 and I-55. ...
,
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...
. A 2017 ''
Wired
''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fra ...
'' article described her as "the type of middle schooler who refused to stand for the
Pledge of Allegiance
The Pledge of Allegiance of the United States is a patriotic recited verse that promises allegiance to the flag of the United States and the republic of the United States of America. The first version, with a text different from the one used ...
, because she thought the idea of making children swear a loyalty oath was bizarre." She won the 2008
DuPage County
DuPage County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of Illinois, and one of the collar counties of the Chicago metropolitan area. As of the 2020 census, the population was 932,877, making it Illinois' second-most populous county. Its county seat is ...
Spelling Bee. This victory led to her participating in the
Scripps National Spelling Bee
The Scripps National Spelling Bee (formerly the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee and commonly called the National Spelling Bee) is an annual spelling bee held in the United States. The bee is run on a not-for-profit basis by The E. W. Scri ...
the same year, where she lasted until the quarterfinals
[(May 30, 2008)]
National Spelling Bee (Image)
, ''Houston Chronicle
The ''Houston Chronicle'' is the largest daily newspaper in Houston, Texas, United States. , it is the third-largest newspaper by Sunday circulation in the United States, behind only ''The New York Times'' and the ''Los Angeles Times''. With it ...
'' ("Emily Temple-Wood, 14, of Downers Grove, Ill., celebrates making it through the second round.") and finished in 46th place. Following the competition, in June 2008 she was honored by the then-lieutenant governor of Illinois,
Pat Quinn, along with the other regional spelling bee champions. She went on to attend
Downers Grove North High School
Downers Grove North High School (Simply often known as DGN) is a public English medium co-educational high school situated in the city of Downers Grove in the Illinois state of the United States. The school was established in 1928.
About Downer ...
, where she was a member of the speech team. This team won four medals, one of which was for first place, at the 2011
Illinois High School Association
The Illinois High School Association (IHSA) is an association that regulates competition of interscholastic sports and some interscholastic activities at the high school level for the state of Illinois. It is a charter member of the National Fed ...
state meet in
Peoria. As a senior, she was named to the "top two percent" in 2012.
In May 2016, she graduated from
Loyola University Chicago
Loyola University Chicago (Loyola or LUC) is a private Jesuit research university in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1870 by the Society of Jesus, Loyola is one of the largest Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Cathol ...
with degrees in
molecular biology
Molecular biology is the branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions. The study of chemical and physi ...
and Arabic and Islamic studies. She began medical school at Chicago's
Midwestern University
Midwestern University (MWU) is a private medical and professional school with campuses in Downers Grove, Illinois and Glendale, Arizona. As of the 2020-21 academic year, a total of 2,987 students were enrolled at the Downers Grove campus and 3, ...
in the fall of 2016.
Since 2020, she is a medical school graduate and a practicing physician.
Work on Wikipedia
Temple-Wood received national press coverage for creating Wikipedia articles about
women scientists
The presence of women in science spans the earliest times of the history of science wherein they have made significant contributions. Historians with an interest in gender and science have researched the scientific endeavors and accomplishments ...
, as well as her activism to increase their representation on Wikipedia. She made her first edit to Wikipedia in 2005, at the age of 10. She first started contributing to the site when she was 12, and it was when she was 12 that she was first harassed online as a result of her Wikipedia contributions. She began her efforts in regards to women scientists when she was in middle school. In 2007, she became an
administrator
Administrator or admin may refer to:
Job roles Computing and internet
* Database administrator, a person who is responsible for the environmental aspects of a database
* Forum administrator, one who oversees discussions on an Internet forum
* N ...
on Wikipedia and served on the
Arbitration Committee
On Wikimedia Foundation projects, an Arbitration Committee (ArbCom) is a binding dispute resolution panel of editors. Each of Wikimedia's projects are editorially autonomous and independent, and some of them have established their own ArbComs w ...
from 2016 to 2017. She co-founded Wikipedia's WikiProject Women Scientists in 2012; since then, she has written hundreds of Wikipedia pages about female scientists. Editing under the
username
A user is a person who utilizes a computer or Computer network, network Service (systems architecture), service.
A user often has a user account and is identified to the system by a username (or user name). Other terms for username includ ...
"Keilana", she began creating such articles when she noticed that few women who were members of the
Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
had Wikipedia articles. She told the
Wikimedia Foundation
The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., or Wikimedia for short and abbreviated as WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California and registered as a charitable foundation under local laws. Best kno ...
that when she first noticed this, she "got pissed and wrote an article that night. I literally sat in the hallway in the dorm until 2 a.m. writing
yfirst women in science article." The article she is the most proud of is that on
Rosalyn Scott
Rosalyn P. Scott (born 1950) is an American thoracic surgeon known for her work in education and for being the first African-American woman to become a thoracic surgeon.
Early life and education
Scott was born and raised in Newark, New Jersey a ...
, the first African-American woman to become a thoracic surgeon.
Temple-Wood has also organized
edit-a-thon
An edit-a-thon (sometimes written editathon) is an event where some editors of online communities such as Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap (also as a "mapathon"), and LocalWiki edit and improve a specific topic or type of content. The events typically i ...
s at museums and libraries with the aim of increasing the representation of women scientists on Wikipedia. In October 2015, she told ''
The Atlantic
''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science.
It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
'' that she had identified 4,400 women scientists who did not have Wikipedia articles written about them even though each of them was notable enough to be covered by one. In March 2016, she gained international media attention because of her approach to the
online
In computer technology and telecommunications, online indicates a state of connectivity and offline indicates a disconnected state. In modern terminology, this usually refers to an Internet connection, but (especially when expressed "on line" or ...
sexual harassment
Sexual harassment is a type of harassment involving the use of explicit or implicit sexual overtones, including the unwelcome and inappropriate promises of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. Sexual harassment includes a range of actions fro ...
she had received: for every such email she received, she plans to create a Wikipedia article about a woman scientist.
That month, she told ''
BuzzFeed News
''BuzzFeed News'' is an American news website published by BuzzFeed. It has published a number of high-profile scoops, including the Steele dossier, for which it was heavily criticized, and the FinCEN Files. Since its establishment in 2011, it ...
'' that with respect to her doing this, "My motivation is to channel the frustration I feel from being harassed into something productive." In May 2016, she told ''
The Fader
''The Fader'' (stylized as ''FADER'') is a magazine based in New York City that was launched in 1999 by Rob Stone and Jon Cohen. The magazine covers music, style and culture. It was the first print publication to be released on iTunes.
It is o ...
'': "As a Wikipedian, my natural response to seeing a gap in coverage is to start a project, so that's what I did with the Women Scientists project. The narrative of history has been dominated by men, and making sure that women's biographies are included in Wikipedia can be our way of writing women back into that narrative."
Her work led to her being named as joint
Wikipedian of the Year
The Wikimedian of the Year is an annual award that honors Wikipedia editors and other contributors to Wikimedia projects to highlight major achievements within the Wikimedia movement, established in August 2011 by Wikipedia's co-founder Jimmy Wa ...
in 2016, along with
Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight
Dame Rosie Gojich Stephenson-Goodknight (born December 5, 1953), known on Wikipedia as Rosiestep, is an American Wikipedia editor who is noted for her attempts to address gender bias in the encyclopedia by running a project to increase the quant ...
.
Positions
Temple-Wood is a member of the
board of directors
A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...
of
Wikimedia DC, the
District of Columbia
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
-area chapter of the Wikimedia movement. She is also a board member of the
Wiki Project Med Foundation
James M. Heilman (born ) is a Canadian emergency physician, Wikipedian, and advocate for the improvement of Wikipedia's health-related content. He encourages other clinicians to contribute to the online encyclopedia.
With the Wikipedia usern ...
, and has served as
Wikipedian in Residence
A Wikipedian in residence or Wikimedian in residence (WiR) is a Wikipedia editor, a Wikipedian (or Wikimedian), who accepts a placement with an institution, typically an art gallery, library, archive, museum, cultural institution, learned socie ...
at the
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH, ) is the United States federal agency responsible for conducting research and making recommendations for the prevention of work-related injury and illness. NIOSH is part of the C ...
.
The Keilana effect
![Enwiki mean weighted sum](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/Enwiki_mean_weighted_sum.diff_of_all_ws.annotated.svg)
A paper, "Interpolating Quality Dynamics in Wikipedia and Demonstrating the Keilana Effect", about a phenomenon named after Temple-Wood's work, was presented by
Aaron Halfaker
Aaron Halfaker (; born December 27, 1983) is principal applied scientist at Microsoft Research. He previously served as a research scientist at the Wikimedia Foundation until 2020.
Education
Halfaker earned a Bachelor of Science degree in comput ...
at
OpenSym
OpenSym is a shorthand for International Symposium on Open Collaboration, formerly International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration, also formerly WikiSym or the Wiki Symposium, a conference dedicated to wiki research and practice. In 20 ...
'17, the International Symposium on Open Collaboration. This study finds an
inflection point
In differential calculus and differential geometry, an inflection point, point of inflection, flex, or inflection (British English: inflexion) is a point on a smooth plane curve at which the curvature changes sign. In particular, in the case of ...
in term of articles' quality for women scientists around late 2012, when Temple-Wood, aka User:Keilana, impulsed a community effort on that matter.
Works
*
*
*
* Reprinted in ''
The Best American Science and Nature Writing
''The Best American Science and Nature Writing'' is a yearly anthology of popular science magazine articles published in the United States. It was started in 2000 and is part of ''The Best American Series'' published by Houghton Mifflin. Articles ...
2017''.
Jahren, Hope, editor. Boston. .
OCLC
OCLC, Inc., doing business as OCLC, See also: is an American nonprofit cooperative organization "that provides shared technology services, original research, and community programs for its membership and the library community at large". It was ...
1004672002.
*
See also
*
List of Loyola University Chicago people
Here follows a list of notable people of Loyola University Chicago:
Academia
Prominent professors
* Pamela L. Caughie
* Vincent A. Mahler
* David Schweickart
Alumni
* Lawrence Biondi, former President of Saint Louis University
* Margaret C ...
*
List of Wikipedia people
The list of Wikipedia people includes notable editors, founders and functionaries of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.
__NOTOC__
By surname
A
* Evan Amos, a New York City-based professional photographer known for his numerous stock image ...
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Temple-Wood, Emily
1994 births
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American women writers
American biographers
American science writers
American women biographers
Living people
Loyola University Chicago alumni
Place of birth missing (living people)
Wikimedians of the Year
Women science writers
Writers from Illinois
American Wikimedians
Wikipedia people
American osteopathic physicians