At the University at Buffalo, Raven Baxter begins a Ph.D. in science education as an Arthur A. Schomburg Fellow

Raven Baxter began her Ph.D. at the University at Buffalo in 2018 as one of 18 new Arthur A. Schomburg Fellows. She entered the Graduate School of Education's program in Curriculum, Instruction and the Science of Learning, with a concentration in science education.

She started the program while working full time at SUNY Buffalo State, where she advised science freshmen. According to a Buffalo State alumni profile, she was awarded a full scholarship along with the fellowship.

"Early in my Ph.D. program, I was still going back to the same question: How can we create better ways to engage underrepresented children in local schools in STEM classrooms and eventually STEM careers?" she told Buffalo State. The same question runs through her public science education as Raven the Science Maven, which she started in 2016.

Her doctorate began as researchers measured who works in science. In January 2018, the Pew Research Center reported that Black workers held 9% of STEM jobs while making up 11% of the U.S. workforce. Forty-one percent of Americans said a lack of encouragement "from an early age" was a major reason there were not more Black and Hispanic STEM workers. In December, the National Science Foundation reported that doctorates awarded to Black U.S. citizens and permanent residents rose 23% from 2008 to 2017. Their share grew from 6% to 7%.

UB describes the fellowship, also known as the SUNY Graduate Diversity Fellowship Program, as aid for students "who have demonstrated academic achievement and overcome a disadvantage or other impediment to success in higher education."

Its namesake, Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, was a Puerto Rican historian and curator of African descent. His collection became the basis of the New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem.

After her master's degree, Baxter did cancer research for Albany Molecular Research Inc. on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. "I remember thinking to myself, There are kids literally down the street from me who are failing, and I'm in a lab all day," she said in the profile.

Baxter in a later SUNY Buffalo State alumni profile that describes her fellowship. Photo: SUNY Buffalo State

She also taught biology at SUNY Erie. "I loved teaching and working with the students," she said. "It's the reason why I decided to pump the brakes on a career in hard science and do something in science education."

At UB, she researched culturally responsive teaching strategies in college molecular biology education, according to her fellowship biography. "My interpretation of culturally relevant pedagogy has been primarily through rap and hip-hop music," Baxter told Buffalo State. That work became her dissertation on hip-hop and science communication. She defended it in June 2021, and UB conferred her Ph.D. on Feb. 1, 2022. Buffalo State cited the fellowship when it gave her its 2021 Young Alumnus Achievement Award.

Baxter had earned a B.A. in 2014 and an M.A. in 2017, both in biological sciences, at SUNY Buffalo State.

UB lists its 2018 Schomburg Fellows on its scholars page.