The AfroBiotech: Black Lives Matter in Science, Engineering and Medicine conference will be held October 26-28 on a virtual platform owing to the Covin-19 pandemic facing the world at present. The conference will highlight the achievements of African Americans in biotechnology, inspire a new generation of diverse biotechnology professionals and identify, communicate, and explore current advancements in various aspects of Biotechnology. This forum organizes African-American scientific talent from across the U.S. at a single event and aims to enable the biotech industry to hire diverse professionals, inspire organizers of other scientific conferences to invite diverse speakers and inspire the next generation of diverse students and scholars to join this community. A virtual platform that will allow for vibrant and highly interactive virtual events that include a poster session, Q&A discussions, and small group/one on one discussion has been chosen. The conference provides forums for scientific presentations, networking, extended discussions, presentations and is inclusive of early-career researchers, postdoctoral associates and graduate students.
Although the field of biological engineering is rapidly expanding and integrating with the US and global economies the data show that African Americans continue to be underrepresented in this scientific area. There is also an increasing number of African Americans entering this scientific area but this growth is still insufficient to alleviate the underrepresentation in the field of biological engineering. This situation represents an opportunity for the community of African American biological engineers to organize itself to address these future opportunities. The AfroBiotech conference will create a forum for African American biological engineers to become organized to focus on this growing opportunity and at the same time address advances and prospects in scientific areas pertinent to biological engineering. The conference has a diverse agenda that is inclusive of early-career and postdoctoral researchers as well as graduate students. The agenda accommodates sessions for networking and extended discussions.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
