Black voices in physics: Farrah Simpson

This interview is part of PT‘s “Black voices in physics” series of Q&As with Black physicists.

Farrah Simpson is in her third year of the physics PhD program at Brown University. Originally from Jamaica, she came to the US to earn an undergraduate degree at Columbia University. She works in high-energy physics with the Compact Muon Solenoid collaboration, searching for indications of decays to heavy standard model objects and readying the CMS for the high-luminosity upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

PT: Why did you choose physics?

SIMPSON: As an undergraduate, I was originally on a prelaw and engineering track. My first-year physics professor would go on tangents about CERN, and it was really exciting. It was a long road for me to switch—I had doubts. In my senior year, I revisited the idea of a PhD, and in a gap year I met Stephon Alexander . That was the first time I saw a physicist who looked like me, and he was also from the Caribbean. It made the idea attainable.

I do believe that students who are minorities and don’t see people who look like them feel more impostor syndrome.

PT: Do you feel accepted now?

SIMPSON: I am super supported by mentors, including ones who look like me. But I still feel the pressures of impostor syndrome.

I am a teaching assistant, and my classes are always predominantly white males. They will ask if I am sure about things. They question me more than they would other TAs.

PT: What do you think would help?

SIMPSON: We need way more representation at every level—undergraduate, graduate, faculty. But we also need to create an environment that is more inclusive. That’s a buzzword now, but there is a difference between diversity and inclusion. How do Black physicists feel on a day-to-day basis? Do they get similar funding and support as their colleagues? We need a shift in culture. We need a shift in mind-set. It benefits everyone. It helps physics.