The full presence of one’s salient intersecting identities is the foundation for how belonging is made manifest in one’s life. I belong in places where I feel like I can see myself. In life, the pursuit of one’s purpose or calling is often found in the sweet spot of where those identities meet and my journey through my education tells the story of two powerful and relevant aspects to who I am as a person but also as a professional.
The lofty dreams of a first generation kid from New Jersey who was taught early on how powerful education can be in the changing of entire generations of people has fine tuned my perspective as an educator. I am a lover of science and I trained in Kinesiology receiving an undergraduate degree in Exercise Science with a concentration in athletic training with my masters and doctoral degrees in Kinesiology (Athletic Training, Integrative Exercise Physiology) focusing on bone and bone biomechanics.
As I began to grow as a professional in the technical space, I realized that the further I progressed in my career in STEM the fewer there were people like me in the spaces I came to inhabit. In those spaces, I saw that gap as an opportunity that I could serve as a mentor and a person who could connect folks to one another so even though there were only a few of us we would know we were not alone. This looked like engagement with my local community to build connections, creating programs or access to programs through networks that gave role models to young people who maybe never thought about a life in STEM as a possibility.
I came to WPI in 2013 as a post-doctoral fellow in Biomedical Engineering after completing my doctoral degree. In that position, I combined my love for people with education and my passion for biomechanics which led to a position as assistant teaching professor at WPI in 2016 where I had the opportunity to engage in more activities that support students who had similar identities to my own in STEM. I began to interact with students in a more personal way through involvement in initiatives on campus related to social justice, preparing underrepresented students working toward degrees in higher education and creating pathways for local worcester public school students (particularly first generation students) to be able to have access to an excellent education here at WPI. I am a firm believer in the idea that your gifts will make space for you and those gifts when combined with hard work is where you find yourself working within your purpose.
Currently, I have a dual role as Teaching Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and also serve as the Director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs. My identity as a scientist and professor of engineering, an African American woman who loves to support people who have historically been marginalized and my gifts for connecting people and fostering belonging have intersected at WPI in a way that allows me to use all of who I am and what I have been trained to do to foster belonging, acceptance, and inclusion of all people.
The path that has led me here has been one intensely focused in purposeful personal, and professional growth. My goal at WPI is to not only create safe spaces for all to feel as if they belong but to cultivate a mindset of purposeful and professional growth where who you are is as critically important as to what you have been trained to do so the full presence of one’s intersecting identities have maximum impact in the places our students choose to serve in their chosen professions.