On a whim, Jess Wade typed out her first Wikipedia page five years ago. It was a biography of Kim Cobb, an American climatologist who -- despite earning several scientific accolades -- had never been written about on the popular online encyclopedia. "I met her at a science event, and I was massively impressed," said Wade, a British physicist, who, after a quick online search, was stunned to see that Cobb had no profile on the public platform. Wade had stumbled onto something she found troubling: Cobb was one of countless deserving women whose names and lengthy list of achievements had yet to be chronicled on Wikipedia. She decided to take matters into her own hands and since 2017, Wade has written more than 1,750 Wikipedia pages for female and minority scientists and engineers whose accomplishments were not documented on the site. She has made it her mission to correct gender and racial biases in the scient community, and advocate for women in STEM. "Wikipedia is a really powerful way to give credit to people who, for a long time, have been written out of history," Wade said.
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