Recommended Reading: Black History Month Meets Women in Science

A reading list for Black History Month of books by and/or about women and gender-nonconforming people in science.

Wild Life: A Scientist’s Journey from Dreams to Purpose by Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant

When Trees Testify: Science, Wisdom, History, and America’s Black Botanical Legacy by Beronda L. Montgomery

Fearless, Sleepless, Deathless: What Fungi Taught Me about Nourishment, Poison, Ecology, Hidden Histories, Zombies, and Black Survival by Maria Pinto

Twice as Hard: The Stories of Black Women Who Fought to Become Physicians, from the Civil War to the 21st Century by Jasmine Brown

The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey Into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

The Edge of Space-Time: Particles, Poetry, and the Cosmic Dream Boogie by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

Sharks Don’t Sink: Adventures of a Rogue Shark Scientist by Jasmin Graham

Life on Other Planets: A Memoir of Finding My Place in the Universe by Aomawa Shields

The Beauty in Breaking: A Memoir by Michele Harper

Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals by Alexis Pauline Gumbs

Americans Hate Coyotes: How the War on America’s Song Dog Began and Why it Persists. A Collection of Essays by socioecologist Jazmin Murphy

Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology by Deirdre Cooper Owens

Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly

The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis by Maria Smilios

The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation After the Genome by Alondra Nelson

Olivia Campbell is the New York Times bestselling author of Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine and Sisters in Science: How Four Women Physicists Escaped Nazi Germany and Made Scientific History.

A seasoned journalist and essayist, Campbell is the resident “science of folklore” contributor at National Geographic. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Guardian, Washington Post, New York Magazine, People, Smithsonian Magazine, Scientific American, STAT News, Undark, Aeon, Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, Aeon, Catapult, Literary Hub, and History.com, among others. Find out more on her website.