Black Suns: An Astrophysics Adventure, a documentary about chasing eclipses and science dreams, chronicles the lives of two globe-trotting astrophysicists, Dr Alphonse Sterling and Dr Hakeem Oluseyi, as they follow/document the two solar eclipses that occurred in 2012.
Black Suns explores how and why the two men became scientists, their opposing paths and personalities, their struggles as minorities in a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) field, and their noteworthy accomplishments to date.
Dr Alphonse Sterling (http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/people/sterling/) of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, currently stationed in Japan: a man who had early success in the US, but left his home country to further cultivate his wide-ranging interests.
Dr Hakeem Oluseyi (https://www.aps.org/careers/physicists/profiles/oluseyi.cfm) of the Physics & Space Sciences department at the Florida Institute of Technology: a scientist who beat all the odds -- poverty, homelessness, single parent, poor early education, gang warfare -- to get to where he is today.
Dr Jarita C Holbrook (https://www.facebook.com/drjaritaholbrook/)
Scientist and cultural anthropologist, Dr Holbrook’s films include Hubble’s Diverse Universe, (HDU, exec prod/interviewer/editor, 2010) http://www.HDUmovie.com and The Micro-X Rocket Project (exec prod/interviewer/co-director, in production). With a doctorate in astronomy & astrophysics (UC Santa Cruz), MS in astronomy (SDSU), and BS in physics (Caltech), her academic research bridges astronomy, anthropology, and Africana studies.
Join us for a special film screening hosted by the Science Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Working Group.
