Until a few years ago, I never felt inspired by historical stories of scientists. The thought of learning scientific history - even the history of my own major -  sounded abhorrent. Learn about the achievements of only caucasians from western civilizations? No, thank you. I had had enough of the hegemony. I passed.

I must have known not all scientists came from the western world. But I never gave it much thought. After being socialized to a history that mostly focused on the west, I wasn’t interested in science history. This changed  when I stumbled onto historical stories of non-western scientists. At the time, I felt betrayed. Here were all these stories that were actually inspiring to me - scientists whose beliefs and cultures were so far from the West’s- but I didn’t get a chance to discover them until my senior year of college.

There is a diverse scientific tradition that exists outside the Western world, and we know little about it. Sadly, little is done to make this well known. In presenting a biased history, we lend preference to white-ness and Western achievement. This affects all of us, whether we are children in schools, or professionals working in STEM fields. The current popular representation of science history doesn’t present the whole picture. As such, this limited representation is a disservice to both our past and future.

As we strive to help minorities succeed in science today, it is important that we highlight those scientists from the past who didn’t “fit” the present stereotypes. Too many people are affected by stereotypes of who and what a scientist is - stereotypes that a western-centric history reinforces. It’s a problem that we need to think about, and a problem that is tied to our presentation of history.

The Scientific Tradition (SciT) is a project from the Stem Advocacy Institute (SAI). My hope is that eventually this collection of stories will serve as an introductory resource to fill in the gap we have in science history, and benefit those who might not otherwise have found inspiration in the past. Stay tuned as we slowly but surely build a database that will present an alternative view of science history.

To learn more about the issues, read our Nature correspondence that we published in 2018. The stories are also published on Medium. 

Aiza Kabeer (Project Founder and SAI Member)