A timeline celebrating 179 years of achievements by African-Americans in the Madison area featured Angela Byars-Winston, PhD, professor, General Internal Medicine.

Dr. Byars-Winston is a scholar and counseling psychologist who researches effective mentoring. She is the first African-American woman to achieve the rank of full professor in the Department of Medicine.

The historical guide was developed as a joint project by the Boys & Girls Club and media outlets The Capital Times and Madison365 as an educational resource for teachers, students, and parents.

Dr. Byars-Winston was profiled in 2015 by The Capital Times when she and colleagues Christine Pfund and Janet Branchaw were awarded a four-year, $1.4M grant from the National Institutes of Health to investigate how mentors and mentees in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine (STEMM) fields define awareness of diversity and how this awareness affects the mentoring relationship.

Advancing skills involved in mentoring is fundamental, said Dr. Byars-Winston. "Mentoring is the primary tool we have to grow the next generation of scholars," she said.

Dedication to diversity also helps strengthen STEMM fields, explains Dr. Byars-Winston. "The most important reason [for promoting diversity in STEMM fields] is because research shows that teams that are more diverse in terms of backgrounds, ways of thinking (and) disciplinary training, come up with the most creative and the most complex and the fastest solutions to problems. The data are clear over and over again — when you have teams of people, the more diverse groups are the most successful, the most creative, the most productive."

Resources:

• "Black History Month: Greater Madison edition," Wisconsin State Journal, February 28, 2018
• "Q&A: Angela Byars-Winston works to grow and diversify the scientific workforce," The Capital Times, January 14, 2015