As a college undergraduate, Dr. Leticia Márquez-Magaña found herself the only Latina in most of her upper-division science classes, causing her to doubt the wisdom of becoming a scientist. After all, if no one like her pursued such a career, then surely it was one that brought no benefit to Mexican-American communities, she reasoned.
She considered changing her major to liberal arts, but decided not to after a supportive professor pointed out that, if she became a research professor, she would serve as a role model for other female and minority students while simultaneously indulging in her fascination with science.
Since joining San Francisco State University in 1994, Márquez-Magaña, a biology professor, has mentored as many underrepresented minorities as possible, urging them to seek science careers.
But as recently as 2012, only 23 percent of SFSU seniors who graduated in the biomedical and behavioral sciences were underrepresented minorities—even though biology was the second most popular major behind business.
This semester, Márquez-Magaña’s upper-division, interdisciplinary research skills course has only two Blacks out of 24 students. Meanwhile, the 26,000-plus undergraduate student body is made up of 33 percent Blacks and Hispanics combined.
Márquez-Magaña and other faculty aim to boost the proportion of underrepresented minorities who are biomedical and behavioral sciences majors in the annual graduating class to 40 percent. Aided by a new $17 million National Institutes of Health grant to SFSU, they plan to attract more minorities to the sciences by engaging them in community-based research that helps improve the neighborhoods where students live. To do so, the faculty will create new academic courses as part of the SF BUILD program, which stands for Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity Initiative.
