The Chemistry of Black Panther Lecture at Andrews
The recent passing of Chadwick Boseman has renewed interest in both his life and his accomplishments, particularly his global blockbuster Marvel Studios movie Black Panther. Many have been amazed by the generosity and positivity of Chadwick’s life and spirit while living with colorectal cancer. Some have remarked about the existing incidence rates and mortality disparities of cancer, including colorectal cancer, among racial and ethnic groups such as African Americans and non-Hispanic whites.
However, years before Chadwick’s passing Sibrina N. Collins of Lawrence Technological University in Southfield, Michigan, was inspired to use Black Panther and other movies from popular culture as tools and ways to excite students about learning science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). She has written at least three acclaimed science education articles using the fictional Black Panther element called vibranium (Vb). In particular, she challenges students to think critically to determine where vibranium would fit into the Periodic Table of Elements. She builds inorganic chemistry lab experiments around vibranium where students produce the same colors seen in the movie. Her approach engages a diversity of students at all levels of knowledge and understanding, ranging from the visual to the theoretical.
In addition to Black Panther, Collins has used other movies such as Star Wars and the Avengers to do science outreach especially to historically underrepresented groups in STEM. In particular, she has developed a cross-disciplinary exercise that engages high school students with Mary Shelley’s novel "Frankenstein," which was written in 1818. In 2019, Frankenstein was listed among the 100 most influential novels of all time and has lots of depictions in film, plays, literature and popular culture. Collins has brilliantly made connections to this classic and concepts of electrochemistry.
Sibrina N. Collins is an inorganic chemist and STEM educator specializing in using pop culture and movies to engage the next generation of STEM leaders. She earned a BA in chemistry (cum laude) in 1994 from Wayne State University (Detroit, Michigan). Then completed her MS (1996) and PhD (2000) both in the field of inorganic chemistry from The Ohio State University under the direction of Bruce Bursten. As a graduate student at OSU, she received significant training as a photochemist, where she used light to study photochemically reactive molecules. She later completed a postdoctoral appointment at Louisiana State University (Baton Rouge, Louisiana), where she focused on heart disease research.
She has held previous appointments at Claflin University, an HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) in Orangeburg, South Carolina; The College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio; and the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. She has also worked as a writer and editor for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Washington, DC, and the director of Education at The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit, Michigan. Dr. Collins has mentored 17 undergraduate chemistry students and published peer-reviewed articles in journals such as Inorganic Chemistry, Acta Crystallographia, Journal of Chemical Education, The Chemical Educator, and the Bulletin for the History of Chemistry.
Collins is the founding executive director of the Marburger STEM Center, at Lawrence Technological University (LTU) in Southfield, Michigan. The Marburger STEM Center is the intellectual home of campus-wide STEM initiatives at LTU, which promotes inclusiveness, excellence, creativity and innovation.
Collins' online Zoom lecture "Black Panther and Frankenstein: Pop Culture, Chemistry and Humanities" is scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 10, 2020, at 4:30 p.m. (EDT). It will be hosted by the Andrews University Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry as the second in its Fall 2020 Dwain L Ford Guest Lecture Series.
Everyone is invited to view the Collins lecture at https://andrews.zoom.us/j/92307867479.
PR
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