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I'm not going to directly speak to the Nature Coms paper. Instead I'm going to share my experiences as a Black woman mentor; keep in mind that I am a cognitive neuroscientist (neuroimager) and have been in the field for ~25 years. I didn't see another Black neuroimager for years
after I started. Recruiting students was extremely difficult even though everyone wanted to do neuroimaging. (You guess why) I have worked with some amazing students but early on it was impossible. I built my lab with undergrads. I also had no network. Why? My grad advisor didn't
introduce me to a soul, neither did my postdoc advisor who rarely went to conferences. That meant that I couldn't share my network with my students. I also struggled with funding. Now I did make sure my students were able to get their research done and attend conferences. But
being a Black woman neuroimager with no network meant getting funding was difficult. How does this relate to that paper getting all of this buzz, my mentees didn't have access to the same resources as my white male counterparts. I used every resource I had to make sure they had
access to everything they needed especially me. Did I beat myself up because I couldn't provide the same resources &access? Of course. Each of my students have done great work &are all amazing. But the problem isn't my gender. It is the system that is inherently biased.
