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Deja Perkins
Deja Perkins is an American urban ecologist. She has spoken out vocally against racism in STEM fields, is a co-organizer of Black Birders Week, and has acted as president of the BlackAFinSTEM collective. Education and academic career Perkins grew up in Chicago, Illinois. She describes herself as a long-time animal lover. She was introduced to natural resources in high school when her mother enrolled her in "Fishin' Buddies!", a program that aimed to introduce young Chicagoans to science and nature. Perkins originally intended to be a veterinarian, a path she identified as "often the only animal-related career introduced to POC," but realized she was more interested in the relationship between people and the environment as an undergraduate student at Tuskegee University. While a junior at Tuskegee, she was selected as one of 28 winners of the 2017 United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Outlook Forum Diversity Program. She completed a Student Conservation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black Birders Week
Black Birders Week is a week-long series of online events to highlight black naturalists, nature enthusiasts and to increase the visibility of black birders, who face unique challenges and dangers when they are engaged in outdoor activities. The event was created as a response to the Central Park birdwatching incident and Police brutality in the United States, police brutality against Black Americans. The inaugural event ran from May 31 to June 5, 2020. The week of events was organized by a group of Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, STEM professionals and students known as the BlackAFinSTEM Collective. Origin Black Birders Week was announced on Twitter on May 29, 2020. The initiative was prompted in part by the murders of African Americans such as Murder of Ahmaud Arbery, Ahmaud Arbery, Killing of Breonna Taylor, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, and by the Central Park birdwatching incident in which a white dog walker called the police over the actions of a black ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |