Maia Weinstock is an American

science writer Science journalism conveys reporting about science to the public. The field typically involves interactions between scientists, journalists and the public. Origins Modern science journalism originated in weather and other natural history obs ...

and

Lego Lego (, ; ; stylised as LEGO) is a line of plastic construction toys manufactured by the Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. Lego consists of variously coloured interlocking plastic bricks made of acrylonitri ...

enthusiast who resides in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...

. She graduated from

Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...

in 1999, and is the Deputy Editor of ''

MIT News The MIT News is an official publication of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Establishe ...

''.

Biography

Before working at MIT, she worked at

BrainPOP BrainPop (stylized as BrainPOP) is a group of educational websites founded in 1999 by Avraham Kadar, M.D. and Chanan Kadmon, based in New York City.The Certificate of Incorporation of Brainpop.com, LLC was filed with the Secretary of State of t ...

, and was an editor for

SPACE.com Space.com is an online publication focused on outer space, space exploration, astronomy, skywatching and entertainment, with editorial teams based in the United States and United Kingdom. Launched on July 20, 1999, the website offers live coverag ...

and other science publications. In 2014, Weinstock was cited by

Judith Newman Judith B. Newman (born 1961) is an American journalist and author. She writes about entertainment, relationships, parenthood, business, beauty, books, science, and popular culture. Her work has appeared in more than fifty periodicals, including ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' as "a Wikipedian who has been instrumental in raising awareness" of the gender imbalance on that

online encyclopedia An online encyclopedia, also called an Internet encyclopedia, is a digital encyclopedia accessible through the Internet. Some examples include pre-World Wide Web services that offered the '' Academic American Encyclopedia'' beginning in 1980, Enc ...

; her article on how notability is determined on Wikipedia immediately provoked other Wikipedia editors to create a page about Newman. In addition to her editing work, Weinstock has been an editor of Wikipedia for a number of years, and has been involved in efforts to reduce the gender gap among editors and articles that occur on the site. This work includes working at

edit-a-thon An edit-a-thon (sometimes written editathon) is an event where some editors of online communities such as Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap (also known as a " mapathon"), and LocalWiki edit and improve a specific topic or type of content. The events typ ...

s on Ada Lovelace Day, as well. A fan of Lego mini-figures, she first started building them for living scientists, the first being her friend

Carolyn Porco Carolyn C. Porco (born March 6, 1953) is an American planetary scientist who explores the outer Solar System, beginning with her imaging work on the Voyager missions to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in the 1980s. She led the imaging scie ...

. Eventually, this included a submission to the Lego Ideas contest called the "Legal Justice League", which was designed to look like a courtroom built out of Lego bricks, and contained miniature versions of

Sandra Day O'Connor Sandra Day O'Connor (March 26, 1930 – December 1, 2023) was an American attorney, politician, and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006. Nominated by President Ronald Reagan, O' ...

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg ( ; Bader; March 15, 1933 – September 18, 2020) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until Death and state funeral of Ruth Bader ...

Sonia Sotomayor Sonia Maria Sotomayor (, ; born June 25, 1954) is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. She was nominated by President Barack Obama on May 26, 2009, and has served since ...

, and

Elena Kagan Elena Kagan ( ; born April 28, 1960) is an American lawyer who serves as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. She was Elena Kagan Supreme Court nomination ...

. The submission was declined by LEGO as being too political, which led to an increase in publicity for the project, and eventually led to a submission with generic justices. A ''

Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe,'' also known locally as ''the Globe'', is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Boston Globe'' is the oldest and largest daily new ...

'' reporter described Weinstock's apartment as having " acks of heads and hairstyles, torsos and legs and arms, a pint-sized Frankenstein's workshop stored in little plastic bins". In March 2017, Lego announced that it would be making a "Women of

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

" set, based on a design Weinstock had submitted. In 2022

MIT Press The MIT Press is the university press of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The MIT Press publishes a number of academic journals and has been a pioneer in the Open Ac ...

published Weinstock's 320-page biography of

Mildred Dresselhaus Mildred Spiewak Dresselhaus''Mildred Dresselhaus'' was elected in 197 ...

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Weinstock, Maia Brown University alumni Writers from Cambridge, Massachusetts American feminists Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American women writers American science writers American women science writers American women non-fiction writers American biographers American Wikimedians Wikipedia people

Biography

See also

References

External links