Joi Malone is a senior and Physics major at Spelman College from Birmingham, AL. Joi currently serves on the Spelman Physics Club E-board, a member of Utopia Atlanta, and serves as a student liaison in the Office of Alumnae Engagement. While at Spelman Joi has been inducted into the Alpha Lambda Delta Honors Society and has dedicated over 200 hours of service through various community service initiatives. This summer she is conducting a clinical research fellowship in collaboration with Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in the field of Medical Physics. Previously, Joi has completed research in the fields of Soft and Living Matter Physics at the University of California Santa Barbara, and Bioengineering at the University of Minnesota.
Joi has a specific interest in collaborative STEM education through the development of research skills, scientific writing, and partnership with others. She wants to break through stigmatic barriers of Physics and create a culture in which one’s ethnicity, background, or learning style limits their access to the resources needed to understand and utilize the everyday physical phenomena that surrounds us. She has written scientifically for technical and general audiences since her freshman year and plans to create a digital scientific journal platform to educate diverse audiences on physical science, research processes, and tools to enhance their personal learning experiences.
As a Spelman LINCS Scholar, Joi will continue to discover how her work in Physics serves in direct correlation to her role as an advocate for social justice and reform in STEM. Through ongoing research, she has found that there is a limited number of medical devices designed to produce the most accurate results in patients with darker skin pigmentation. Upon graduation, her goal is to pursue a PhD in Physics concentrating in the theoretical and experimental approach to the design of medical physics equipment to close the gap in minority representation in this field.
“LINCS Scholars are two-year cohorts of women scientists at Spelman College, who aspire to become leaders in STEM. These students contribute dynamic science and diverse perspective to a growing field. Typically, most of our LINCS Scholars reside in Laura Spelman Residence Hall, a social justice dorm on Spelman’s campus."