Dajae Williams is a quality control engineer working at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab. While growing up, music helped Dajae in learning math and science in a fun and interactive way. She discovered the correlation between hip hop and science during her class assignment that involved creating a song about the quadratic formula, Williams felt an instant connection as the subjects became more relatable and memorable for her.
When Dajae joined NASA, she felt out of place. “There was no women in my group, there are only a few African Americans in my group or people of color for that matter. So, nobody looked like me, no one acted like me, so it was definitely different and I did not fit it,” she said in a NPR interview. This made her think of ways to take math and science to the children of color such that they enjoy the subjects and aims for NASA or any other science oriented national and international organizations.
She hopes how music helped her falling in love with math and science when she was a teenager, it may help the current generation as well especially the underprivileged kids. Therefore, she started creating raps to make science and math more engaging. She also hopes to see more women and men of color at NASA.
You can listen to William's NPR interview on the link below:
"I create music that fuses hip-hop and math as a tool to encourage underprivileged youth to explore STEM." - Dajae Williams
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