Leeds professor calls for action on IWD to support Black women in academia
Professor Lisa-Dionne Morris of the University of Leeds has highlighted the challenges Black women continue to face in academia and STEM leadership, and why institutions must do more to support them.
In an article she wrote for the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) on International Women’s Day, Professor Morris underlined the stark underrepresentation of Black women in academia and industry leadership.
As the first Black female professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Leeds, she highlights that women make up 48% of academic staff in the UK, but only 30% hold professorial roles; there are still fewer than 100 Black female professors in the country. In the US, Black women occupy just 2% of science and engineering roles. These figures, she argues, reflect structural barriers that continue to limit progression, reinforcing the need for institutional commitment to real and lasting change.
Professor Morris also highlights the achievements of Black women in STEM, from NASA’s Dr Aprille Ericsson to sustainable engineering advocate Yewande Akinola. However, she warns that celebrating individual successes is not enough; institutions must actively dismantle systemic barriers.
She also underlines how initiatives such as the Black Female Academics’ Network and the national EDI Hub+, led by the University of Leeds, have been instrumental in driving change and aim to deliver concrete actions that go beyond symbolic gestures to ensure that diversity in leadership becomes the norm rather than the exception.
You can read Professor Morris’s full article on HEPI’s website.
