#BlackInAstroWeek2021: Day One, June 20

#BlackInAstroGrandSlam, June 20, 2021 

KeShawn Ivory, an incoming PhD student at Vanderbilt University studying dark matter haloes, quickly cleared his throat and sang, in a honeyed voice, a beautiful a capella rendition of SZA's "Good Days". When the song finished, everyone erupted into cheers. "Okayyy, KeShawn's got bars!" someone praised. Even on Zoom the day after Juneteenth, the Black In Astro community was in high spirits. What followed was a day of joy, laughter, and above all, a celebration of the diversity of experiences within the Black diaspora.

Next, JoAnn C. Roberts, also known by her stage name "Paradigm," performed a stirring selection of poems from her new book, Continuum: A Collection of Poetry. Her works ran the gamut from revolutionary with detailed descriptions of complex physics concepts to healing and uplifting. The audience fell along with Roberts into a sort of rhythmic trance; when she spoke, one couldn't help but listen to the power and the lyrical cadence of her words. She'll be performing more of her incredible work on Thursday, June 24th for #BlackWholeDay during #BlackInAstroWeek. 

The day ended with a look into LGPHY ARCADE, a mobile app developed by India Jackson, an astrophysics PhD candidate at Georgia State University and mother to a wonderful, teenaged daughter. While working on her dissertation, she came up with the idea of developing a simulation to predict the effects of energetic particles and cosmic rays on future astronauts heading to Mars. To fund her research, Jackson learned 10 different coding languages, wrote over one hundred thousand lines of code, and founded Let's Get Physical, LLC, a software publishing company focused on creating content for the Black nerd (Blerd) community. LGPHY ARCADE, Jackson's flagship app, features games that incorporate her scientific research, love of Blerd culture, and retro video games while also supporting local Atlanta businesses. Learn more about LGPHY ARCADE at Jackson's GoFundMe page and you can download the app for both Apple and Android devices. 

Stay tuned for our ongoing coverage of #BlackInAstroWeek and head over to https://www.blackinastro.com/flyer for more details about all of the amazing events for the next week!