Prof. Jannette Carey Is Commencement Speaker At CCSU Saturday

Alumna Is Prominent Researcher in Biophysical Chemistry; Advocate For Access To STEM Education

By John McNamara

NEW BRITAIN – Scientist Jannette Carey, Ph.D, Associate Professor of Chemistry and Molecular Biology at Princeton University, will address Central Connecticut State University’s graduating class for the Schools of Engineering, Science and Technology and Education and Professional Studies on Saturday, May 13, in outdoor commencement ceremonies (live stream available) at Arute Field.

Dr. Carey, a CCSU alumna who came to New Britain to attend Central, is a cutting edge researcher in biophysical chemistry at Princeton who collaborates with colleagues in the U.S. and Europe in basic research on biomolecular interactions. Internationally Dr. Carey has been recognized with an appointment as a visiting scientist at the Czech Academy of Sciences. In 2005-2006, she was the Tage Erlander guest professor of the Swedish National Science Foundation, the highest award given to visiting scholars.

Her research and collaborative projects have been published in dozens of scientific journals and she is an associate editor of Frontiers in Biophysics: Protein Structure and Dynamics, and she serves on the editorial boards of Biomolecular Concepts and Biochimica et Biophysica Acta: Proteins and Proteomics. At Princeton Dr. Carey has won National Science Foundation (NSF) awards for support of her research and educational activities.

CCSU recognized Dr. Carey with an accolade last March as one of two female “trailblazers” from the 1970s to mark the 50th anniversary of Title IX, the landmark federal law signed in 1972 that prohibits gender discrimination in educational programs. 

A native of Chicago, Dr. Carey arrived in New Britain in 1968 to start her postsecondary education very early and she stays involved in the city. Enrolling at CCSU before her 17th birthday, Carey was a double major in chemistry and biology, setting her on a path that would eventually lead to a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Illinois.

As an undergraduate she lived with relatives not far from campus and was on the staff of The Recorder, the student newspaper. At CCSU at the height of the Vietnam War, Carey was an activist and part of the student mobilization for peace and civil rights. Recognizing that the Selective Service law requiring that only men register for the draft was discriminatory, she joined others in calling for women to register as a protest against both the draft and the war.

The activism and commitment to social justice of her undergraduate years never left Carey as she rose in a male-dominated discipline and gained prominence in her field of research.

She was the first woman appointed to Princeton’s chemistry faculty in 1989 but it took another 15 years before her trailblazing appointment led to another woman on the department’s faculty at the Ivy League school.

Dr. Carey says women remain under represented in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) and especially in her discipline. “I think we have a huge problem in America generally with equality of opportunity,” Carey told a Princeton interviewer last year. “Equal opportunity has become just something people say…..As a woman in STEM, I’ve experienced marginalization firsthand, but in a way that still reflects a great deal of privilege because I’m white, I have a wonderful education, and I have a privileged position. I’m really very committed to seeing more meaningful change in our society than I think we’ve managed to achieve so far.”

She pursues her activism by directing a long-running NSF supported Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Training Site in biophysics, a program that brings community college students to campus every summer, promoting entry and achievement in STEM studies of underrepresented groups and opening doors to science fields. REU students also spend a second summer at the Czech Academy where Carey is a visiting scientist.

“Community colleges are serving a population that can’t take on the debt of a four-year education,” notes Carey of students from two-year public colleges, many of whom are the first members of their families to attend college, rely on Pell grants to pay tuition and have to balance work, family and study to get a first degree. Community college students, Carey says, may not have the “polish” or the privilege that come with a prep school background, but they more than make up for it in their motivation to succeed once they have an opportunity.

For Jannette Carey there is a “through line” from her CCSU days of activism through her basic research in biophysics to her ongoing efforts to open STEM doors to students who face financial and educational obstacles.

She sums up her work as a scientist and advocate for justice by saying “what I do now is use my position to try to do good in the world.”

Central Connecticut State University will host two outdoor commencement ceremonies on Saturday, May 13. (In the event of inclement weather, the ceremonies will be held on Sunday, May 14.) The ceremonies will take place at the University’s Arute Field Dr. Carey  will speak at the 9 a.m. ceremony.

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