Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Respect (DEIR) Committee of the ACS Puget Sound Section
Upcoming Book Discussion
Lessons in Chemistry
By Bonnie Garmus
Tuesday, September 12, 2023 @ 7 PM
All are welcome. Link to Zoom Virtual meeting room. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88213278482?pwd=SmlncDY2SzZkQTlxbWpHUlpOdVUyQT09
The group has selected a popular novel for a summer read and hopes you will join us in September when we get together to discuss it. While Lessons in Chemistry by Seattle author Bonnie Garmus is a novel, the story of the protagonist chemist, Elizabeth Zott, resonated with many, making the author’s debut novel at age 60 a best-selling book. Elizabeth is a female scientist with no degree working in a male dominated world. She is harassed, her ideas are ignored or stolen, and must find a different path to make ends meet as a single parent. While her experiences were common for women in the early sixties, the book has captivated readers in over thirty countries because for women and underrepresented individuals, the challenges are still not so uncommon even today.
Discussion Leader: Lee Dorigan has been a member of the book discussion group since its inception. She has a master’s degree in in Environmental Studies. She is a retired scientist with over 30 years of service in local, state, and federal agencies. Her distinguished career included working on the listing of the Duwamish River as a superfund site. As part of her last project with King County she was involved with defining the nature and extent of the contamination from the Asarco smelter.
For questions contact Despina Strong: strongdespina@gmail.com
Click here for a flyer.
Past Events
Looking Like the Enemy
By Mary Matsuda Gruenewald
Tuesday, December 13, 2022 @ 7 pm
The bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 is remembered every year as “the date which will live in infamy” as declared by President Roosevelt. The USS Arizona Memorial, the resting place of over 1,000 US sailors, is a popular destination for tourists. However, little is said about the fate of the over 100,000 American citizens with Japanese ancestry whose lives were changed forever after that historic day. Mary Matsuda Gruenewald, a Vashon Island native, and a survivor of the internment camps, shares her experience in her book, Looking Like the Enemy. Her story is an important lesson for all of us.
Link to Zoom Virtual meeting room:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88213278482?pwd=SmlncDY2SzZkQTlxbWpHUlpOdVUyQT09
The book discussion will be led by John L. Shafer. Here is a flyer.
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
Join a book discussion led by Kate Schultz, Pacific Northwest National Laboratories (PNNL), about the book Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
7 pm, Tuesday, September 13, 2022
Register for the Zoom Meeting. Download a flyer.
Robin Kimmerer is a botanist and a member of the Citizen Potawotomi Nation who asks questions of nature with the tools of science. This book is a NYTimes best seller.
Kate Schultz is a data scientist in the Computational Biology Group at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. She conducts research and develops software to advance AI-assisted computational capabilities in areas including in silico drug discovery, computational toxicology, chemical space analysis, and metabolomics. Her research has been published in the Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling and Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics. She holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Washington and an M.S. in Computer Science from Northeastern University.
Sponsored by the ACS PSS Diversity Equity Inclusion and Respect (DEIR) Committee
Here is information about some past events of the DEIR Committee.
GUMBOS: A Materials Approach to Analytical Chemistry.
DEIR Webinar 2 (November 19, 2020) Recording: Promoting an Inclusive Campus Environment
DEIR Webinar 1 (October 14, 2020) Recording: Promoting Student Success