“I read Carl Sagan’s Cosmos over and over in college,” says Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, a University of New Hampshire theoretical physicist and feminist theorist. “But there was something that Carl Sagan couldn’t speak to because he was embodied differently from me.”Alan Dyer/VW Pics/UIG/Getty
Growing up in Los Angeles in the 1980s and ’90s, a daughter and granddaughter of social justice activists, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein fell in love with math and the physical sciences and developed a profound curiosity about the cosmos (though the smoggy night sky of her childhood blocked her view of the stars). She soon developed a detailed plan for her life that led to a career writing and teaching about physics and gender studies at the University of New Hampshire.
Today, Prescod-Weinstein’s work stands out for the ways she weaves her identity as queer, Black, and Jewish into her work. In her latest book, The Edge of Space-Time: Particles, Poetry, and the Cosmic Dream Boogie, Prescod-Weinstein brings a Black feminist lens to cosmology, quantum physics, poetry, and popular culture to help unlock the mysteries of the physical universe.
“The Edge of Space-Time is a much more intimate book because this is my brain,” Prescod-Weinstein says. “This is how I see the universe. These are the things that I am passionate about in my quiet moments.”
On this week’s More To The Story, Prescod-Weinstein talks about the need for diversity and inclusivity in the sciences and puts science fiction’s various hypotheses for space travel to the test with host Al Letson.
Find More To The Story on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Pandora, or your favorite podcast app, and don’t forget to subscribe.
