Sherilynn Black facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Sherilynn Black
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Black speaks on Culturally Aware Mentorship for the National Institute of General Medical Sciences in 2020
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| Born |
North Carolina
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| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | B.S. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Ph.D. and postdoctoral work at Duke University |
| Known for | Developing programs to increase diversity and equity in graduate education |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Neuroscience, Education |
| Institutions | Duke University School of Medicine |
Sherilynn Black is an American neuroscientist. This means she studies the brain and nervous system. She works at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. There, she helps professors and also teaches about medical education. Her work focuses on how our brains work in social situations. She also creates programs to make sure everyone has a fair chance in higher education.
Early Life and Education
Sherilynn Black grew up in North Carolina. She went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for her first college degree. She was a special student called a Morehead-Cain Scholar. She studied Psychology and also Biology.
After college, she went to Duke University to study Neurobiology. While getting her advanced degree (a Ph.D.), she also studied education at UNC at Chapel Hill. In 2002, she made history. She was the first African American graduate student to pass an important exam needed to finish her degree.
After earning her Ph.D. in 2008, she stayed at Duke. She did more research from 2009 to 2012. She worked with Dr. Kafui Dzirasa. They studied how the brain controls emotions. They found that using light to control brain cells could help mice feel less sad. This showed how different parts of the brain work together to manage feelings.
Career and Research
In 2010, Duke University started a new office. It was called the Office of Biomedical Graduate Diversity. Dr. Black was chosen to be its first director. She worked to help students who felt like they didn't belong. This feeling is sometimes called imposter syndrome. She also helped students find role models who looked like them.
She brought in many different students and teachers. She started reaching out to students even before they finished college. She created a big program to help fix differences in education. These differences were often based on gender and race. She helped create programs for students who often face challenges in college.
Dr. Black believes that having many different people is not just a good thing to do. She thinks it helps science and society move forward. She organized a yearly meeting for students from different backgrounds. This helped them make friends and get ready for graduate school. Because of her work, the number of applications to Duke's science programs doubled in five years. More students also got funding for their studies.
In 2012, Dr. Black became an assistant professor at Duke. She taught about medical education. She later moved to Duke's School of Medicine in 2013. During this time, she studied what helps students succeed in STEM fields. STEM includes science, technology, engineering, and math. She also used computational models. These are like computer programs that predict how well education programs will work.
She realized that student challenges were often linked to not having enough support. It wasn't always about how smart they were. So, she helped get a grant of almost $2 million from the National Institutes of Health. This money helped start a program called BioCoRE. In this role, Dr. Black supported research for both college and graduate students. She also helped students and teachers solve problems. She taught students not to take every insensitive comment personally. She also helped teachers understand how their words affect students.
Since 2017, Dr. Black has been an associate vice provost. This means she helps lead the university in supporting its teachers. She is part of many important groups at Duke. These groups work on science education, diversity, and supporting different communities. In 2023, she was chosen to co-lead a new project. This project is by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. It aims to understand how mentoring, career growth, and well-being are connected.
Dr. Black has pointed out that how power is organized in schools and companies can make it hard to change things. People might stick to old ways to protect their jobs. She says that changing these power structures is hard but needed. Without welcoming environments, some groups will continue to be left out. She warns that scientists might feel forced to fit in. This would stop them from bringing new ideas that diversity offers.
Awards and Honors
- 2019 Inaugural Speaker for the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Diversity Speaker Series
- Duke AHEAD Fellow
- Deans Award for Inclusive Excellence in Graduate Education
- 2015 Samuel DuBois Cook Society Award
- Morehead-Cain Scholar
Appointments
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute Gilliam Fellowship mentor
- National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Committee Member
- American Association of Medical Colleges - Ph.D. Outreach Committee
- The Burroughs Wellcome Fund
- Society for Neuroscience - Faculty in the Neuroscience Scholars Program and Member of the Professional Development Committee
