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TW: Depression, loss, and racial discrimination

Emily chats with Dr. Malik Boykin, who opens up about early life experiences, how they lead him to become a Professor, and some of the challenges he has faced, and continues to face, as a Black man and academic.

This episode covers:

·  Embracing multidimensionality eg. You can be a scientist AND an artist

·  Formative experiences from Malik’s early life

·  A drop off in high school engagement and grades after significant loss

·  Malik’s realisation that his life as a Black man in America without a college degree may be precarious

·  Finding self-, rather than external, motivation

·  The link between Black advocates and role models in academia, and Malik’s success

·  The academic expectation to continue to meet deadlines even following a devastating personal loss

·  A few examples of the extra labour Malik manages as a Black academic

Resources:

·  Dr. Boykin’s Research Lab

·  Malik Starx the artist

The full transcript of the podcast is available here, with many thanks to Dan Ranson

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Recorded 29/05/2021.

Sound: Mindset by Ketsa is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, available through Free Music Archive.