[Music]
growing up I would often ride public
transit with my mom both the bus and the
subway and as a child just trying to
survive I would often try my best to
stand on the subway car without holding
any onto anything while it was moving
I would try and master the turns glide
with the moves of the subway cruising
like a boss this was of course against
the nagging persistence of my mom who
would always be yelling Eugenia
hold onto the safety rail but I didn’t
need safety rails I was a boss anyway as
I was carrying out my usual duties one
day the subway car came to a screeching
halt I miscalculated my usual stance and
instead of remaining standing I went
flying and smack into the floor from
then on I held on to safety rails yeah
but for subway rights to come the
question was always deep inside of me
why couldn’t I stay standing why did I
have to hold on to safety rails it
wasn’t until a great eleven physics
class that I realized that I was
experiencing Newton’s first law or the
law of inertia which states that an
object at rest remains at rest or in
motion remains in motion at a constant
velocity unless acted on by an external
net force the external net force in my
case was a subway car coming to a stop I
snapped when I found this out I was like
oh inertia did this huh okay hmm
that’s fine and from grade 11 onwards I
would hold on to the safety rail armed
with new knowledge knowing that the law
of inertia wasn’t gonna knock down this
girl not today in there
and I would share this knowledge with
any other fellow subway riders who had
lost their balance along the way I had
no idea that my curiosity associated
with riding the subway had anything to
do with science I just knew that it was
happening to me and I wanted to know why
like any child I was curious I was born
curious and that bit of curiosity was
starting to butt into this passion for
science I loved science growing up I
loved solving puzzles building things I
loved any show that had to do with
science bill nye I was in it
Magic School Bus I watched that
everything I loved making science
projects yes even your cliche volcano
the paper mache one but listen mine was
the best so it’s fine
I loved participating because for me
science was about figuring out the why –
all of my questions it was about
exploration it was about discovery and
sometimes it was about getting messy but
as I grew I realized that my passion for
science wasn’t necessarily shared with
the people around me I grew up in a
low-income community in West Toronto and
many of my peers like me started off
liking science it was interesting but
after a while the sentiment would always
dramatically shift I would start to hear
things like science is too hard science
is boring I hate it I don’t want to go
to science class and science was turning
away from this field of opportunity and
interest to a subject that had to be
mastered in school and if the prospects
of that were slim for whatever reason
you could not participate I struggled
too because I was really trying to find
my place in science do I belong to my
not I remember when I would learn about
the responsible for the theories and
discoveries that I was learning about I
wanted to know who they were I wanted to
know where they live where they came
from but as I began to research the
people responsible for what I was
learning I realized that I wasn’t part
of that you see one day in my grade
seven geography class I have my science
textbook and I decided to do a little
flip see if I could find anybody that
looked like me just one and guess what I
couldn’t find a one person not one
person and this went beyond my textbooks
I wasn’t seeing myself anywhere in
science I didn’t know one black girl in
science
I remember reading a lot of books I
watched a good amount of TV and I think
the closest version of representation
that I had was Keisha from the Magic
School Bus the one with the puff puff
that would always wear a purple sweater
every day honestly any time Keisha spoke
I was there I was like yes what did you
say tell Arnold tell him I just I I held
on to her because she was the only one
out here doing science and for a while
for a very long time I genuinely
believed that people like me just didn’t
exist in science and how could I be
something that didn’t exist
so this prevented me from having any
lofty goals of being a scientist when I
grew up
I continued it in in high school and
Beyond because I had an African mother
and I had to and because I was genuinely
interested in it one day I was in high
school I’m in the hallway chillin I have
a science textbook with me because I
loved it and I’m just reading through it
and I bump into a student teacher and
she’s like oh hey like science I’m going
through my own identity crisis with
science so I’m trying to play it off
like oh yeah science is all right I
don’t know
science sucks like I don’t even know um
oh this is I’m trying to play it off but
I loved science and she’s like I can
tell you know what there’s a program at
the local university you should be part
of it that’s all the summer mentorship
program I was like okay okay yeah I’ll
do it once the deadline
she’s like tomorrow okay so we ran got
my application together put it through I
got in and I gave it a shot
and that summer changed my life I was
not only exposed to science and brand
new ways but I suddenly had a community
of peers more than just one Keisha
people that look like me came from the
community I came from but from all over
the city all pursuing science wanting to
be doctors wanting to be nurses it was
inspiring and I also met doctors nurses
researchers and they were cool they
spoke to me I came back from that
experience stepping into great twelve
like I’m going into science I could have
seen myself in it for the first time and
I had this new level of confidence I
never thought that that unplanned
hallway interaction with the student
teacher would result in a shift from
this general interest to a tangible
opportunity but it did and serendipitous
opportunities like that one led me on
doing a PhD was a life-changing
experience I had the privilege to work
in a lab and conduct real research I
mentored students I supervised projects
me one of my projects involved working
with an element a lanthanide on the
bottom of the to bottom two rows in the
periodic table called terbium number 65
look it up
and I worked at erbium and used its
luminescent properties to develop
detection tools that could potentially
monitor disease processes such as cancer
and Alzheimer’s it was so cool to be
able to work in an environment where
being wrong wasn’t the end of the world
I had to constantly feel questions like
what are you trying to show here
what’s that can you explain this
experiment there might be something more
here to be honest sometimes I didn’t
know so my answer would be something
like that’s a very good question
um you see what happened was is for
anything I didn’t know I was driven to
fill gaps in my knowledge with more
knowledge it’s like science was
constantly building on this foundation
and I was only scratching the surface of
what I could know it was an incredible
experience and it was super humbling to
know that I had finally become the
scientist that I never saw growing up so
desperately needed
but with this I still struggled cuz my
story this journey from curiosity to a
PhD in chemistry is awesome but it is
only one story and I was always made to
feel like I was an anomaly like oh you
like science Wow good for you you just
continue doing that great not many
people do that like you but good keep
going but I knew the power of the
opportunities that I got I knew that the
opportunities that I had changed my mind
changed so many of the negative and
incorrect perceptions that I had so I
was left with the question what am I
gonna do
because now I’m PhD students working in
a lab at a prominent University in
Canada realizing that not much has
changed since I was in Middle School I
still didn’t see myself anywhere I was
the only one of me in a lot of my
lecturers classes and labs I would go to
international conferences and be asked
oh you’re here for this conference my
friend I’m presenting yes I am but all
of these personal realizations coincided
with the rise of stem learning for those
of you who have never heard of stem it
stands for science technology
engineering and math the importance of
which has grown exponentially over the
last number of years you can’t go
anywhere without hearing about stem stem
is toted as the answer to our world’s
future problems research strongly
indicates that youth must have early and
positive experiences in stem in order to
be connected to critical thinking skills
and future jobs you have kids out here
coding apps running biotech companies
stem is opening doors that were never
possible when I was younger it was
awesome and I was all about it I was
part of it but in knowing that I also
had to critically ask but who is left
out who does not have access to these
opportunities because when I grew up now
where I was growing up where I still was
during my PhD I was still hearing the
same sentiments that I heard when I was
8 years old that science is boring that
I don’t want to be involved that I don’t
want to be engaged
and there wasn’t the same urgency to
push youth in Capri as there was to push
youth all over the world to pursue stem
youth some low-income communities are
often left out of this conversation
accessible opportunities accessible stem
learning opportunities are hard to come
by
interestingly enough very little
research has been done on the
implications of this in a Canadian
context but if we consider this city
alone that means that potentially
thousands of youth are missing out
I felt indebted to use the platform of
my PhD to do something about this I
would go into lab every day loving it
being part of research being humbled and
honored to have this opportunity and go
back to my community and realize that if
something doesn’t change I will be an
anomaly in 2011 I had the unique
opportunity of volunteering with an
organization that was doing work in this
very area visions of science today I am
the CEO of that organization and with a
group of intelligent brilliant people
our mission is to empower youth from
low-income communities through
as an organization that is focused on
working in this space we acknowledge the
barriers the unique barriers faced with
these that we work with barriers that
are augmented when you consider race and
gender but beyond the barriers we see
vital community assets youth like nagual
and alpha to young black woman that I
had the privilege of meeting about four
years ago in our community stomach clubs
programs in one of our locations they
will tell you themselves that initially
they weren’t even sure about their
engagement in stem or interest they were
reluctant to answer questions or ask
them but now they are vocal confident
advocates for stem who invest in their
communities the same way that they were
invested giving opportunities to youth
and by providing free accessible and
consistent stem programming we’re making
this impact with over 500 youth from 24
communities across the Greater Toronto
Area and we’re just getting started and
as a leader of this incredible
organization imma take this time to
reject the deficit based narratives that
we are commonly inundated with
narratives that suggest that youth from
low-income communities lack social
capital and they are doomed for
destruction without our intervention
actually we are doomed for destruction
if we continue to underestimate and
overlook the richness of potential that
lies within every single one of these
communities where where are we gonna be
if we do not empower youth like in a
wall in tarifa youth who are resilient
industrious bright who deserve to have a
chance and a choice of participating and
remaining curious I wanted to be part of
that and to be able to go to work every
day knowing that we’re trying to change
perceptions it is incredible and the sad
thing is if you had told me when I was
12 that I would one day be working in a
research lab on an element called
terbium I wouldn’t have believed you and
that is a problem
science technology engineering and math
are not regulated to subjects that you
learn at school it’s an endless field of
opportunity and discovery and everyone
should be able to participate but to me
stem exists because of people who
channel their curiosity into discovering
and understanding the world around us
and to developing solutions to make it a
better place but that means that the
people present matter the people
that are at those tables decide what
gets researched what gets developed who
it benefits and we as a society have to
become very uncomfortable when there are
voices missing at the table we have to
become very uncomfortable when we create
in the absence of who we really are if I
were to say the truth if we could
somehow know all of the youth all of
their locations the youth who have the
solutions to our world’s future problems
if we knew where they lived we would
find them and give them everything they
need but unfortunately it does not work
that way so we have the collective
responsibility of dismantling the
systemic barriers that exist to keep
some youth in and some use out of this
when I think about the potential of the
youth that we work with I know that our
future solutions that the next nobel
prize in some sort of chemistry or
physics field is just germinating inside
the mind of a youth that lives in a
low-income community in Toronto because
I have no reason to believe that that’s
not true and to those youth to youth who
have felt overlooked who have felt like
they don’t deserve to be in a space
because they don’t see themselves I want
curiosity is your birthright have the
courage to remain curious about the
world around you have the courage to be
curious about the problems that you see
in your community I don’t know where
that courage will lead you maybe it will
lead you to finding out why you fall in
the subway but I already told you that’s
inertia so that one was for free but
maybe it will lead you to asking what is
artificial intelligence and how do I
make how do I use it to make the world a
better place next I would say STEM needs
you we need you
you are the breakthrough that we have
been waiting for no pressure but know
that you can do this I struggled so much
with having the courage to share my
story on platforms like this because
it’s not awkward when things that make
you painful things that have embarrassed
you in the past people want to know
about it people want to hear about it
but as I’ve traveled as I have journeyed
as I have had the privilege of going
from curiosity to
HD I know that being able to share my
story is important so the last thing
I’ll say is when you get to wherever it
is that you will get to do not forget
where you came from and the people that
helped you get there because even though
there is not a mold for you to fit into
you might need to become the mold for
someone else thank you [Applause]
growing up I would often ride public
transit with my mom both the bus and the
subway and as a child just trying to
survive I would often try my best to
stand on the subway car without holding
any onto anything while it was moving
I would try and master the turns glide
with the moves of the subway cruising
like a boss this was of course against
the nagging persistence of my mom who
would always be yelling Eugenia
hold onto the safety rail but I didn’t
need safety rails I was a boss anyway as
I was carrying out my usual duties one
day the subway car came to a screeching
halt I miscalculated my usual stance and
instead of remaining standing I went
flying and smack into the floor from
then on I held on to safety rails yeah
but for subway rights to come the
question was always deep inside of me
why couldn’t I stay standing why did I
have to hold on to safety rails it
wasn’t until a great eleven physics
class that I realized that I was
experiencing Newton’s first law or the
law of inertia which states that an
object at rest remains at rest or in
motion remains in motion at a constant
velocity unless acted on by an external
net force the external net force in my
case was a subway car coming to a stop I
snapped when I found this out I was like
oh inertia did this huh okay hmm
that’s fine and from grade 11 onwards I
would hold on to the safety rail armed
with new knowledge knowing that the law
of inertia wasn’t gonna knock down this
girl not today in there
and I would share this knowledge with
any other fellow subway riders who had
lost their balance along the way I had
no idea that my curiosity associated
with riding the subway had anything to
do with science I just knew that it was
happening to me and I wanted to know why
like any child I was curious I was born
curious and that bit of curiosity was
starting to butt into this passion for
science I loved science growing up I
loved solving puzzles building things I
loved any show that had to do with
science bill nye I was in it
Magic School Bus I watched that
everything I loved making science
projects yes even your cliche volcano
the paper mache one but listen mine was
the best so it’s fine
I loved participating because for me
science was about figuring out the why –
all of my questions it was about
exploration it was about discovery and
sometimes it was about getting messy but
as I grew I realized that my passion for
science wasn’t necessarily shared with
the people around me I grew up in a
low-income community in West Toronto and
many of my peers like me started off
liking science it was interesting but
after a while the sentiment would always
dramatically shift I would start to hear
things like science is too hard science
is boring I hate it I don’t want to go
to science class and science was turning
away from this field of opportunity and
interest to a subject that had to be
mastered in school and if the prospects
of that were slim for whatever reason
you could not participate I struggled
too because I was really trying to find
my place in science do I belong to my
not I remember when I would learn about
the responsible for the theories and
discoveries that I was learning about I
wanted to know who they were I wanted to
know where they live where they came
from but as I began to research the
people responsible for what I was
learning I realized that I wasn’t part
of that you see one day in my grade
seven geography class I have my science
textbook and I decided to do a little
flip see if I could find anybody that
looked like me just one and guess what I
couldn’t find a one person not one
person and this went beyond my textbooks
I wasn’t seeing myself anywhere in
science I didn’t know one black girl in
science
I remember reading a lot of books I
watched a good amount of TV and I think
the closest version of representation
that I had was Keisha from the Magic
School Bus the one with the puff puff
that would always wear a purple sweater
every day honestly any time Keisha spoke
I was there I was like yes what did you
say tell Arnold tell him I just I I held
on to her because she was the only one
out here doing science and for a while
for a very long time I genuinely
believed that people like me just didn’t
exist in science and how could I be
something that didn’t exist
so this prevented me from having any
lofty goals of being a scientist when I
grew up
I continued it in in high school and
Beyond because I had an African mother
and I had to and because I was genuinely
interested in it one day I was in high
school I’m in the hallway chillin I have
a science textbook with me because I
loved it and I’m just reading through it
and I bump into a student teacher and
she’s like oh hey like science I’m going
through my own identity crisis with
science so I’m trying to play it off
like oh yeah science is all right I
don’t know
science sucks like I don’t even know um
oh this is I’m trying to play it off but
I loved science and she’s like I can
tell you know what there’s a program at
the local university you should be part
of it that’s all the summer mentorship
program I was like okay okay yeah I’ll
do it once the deadline
she’s like tomorrow okay so we ran got
my application together put it through I
got in and I gave it a shot
and that summer changed my life I was
not only exposed to science and brand
new ways but I suddenly had a community
of peers more than just one Keisha
people that look like me came from the
community I came from but from all over
the city all pursuing science wanting to
be doctors wanting to be nurses it was
inspiring and I also met doctors nurses
researchers and they were cool they
spoke to me I came back from that
experience stepping into great twelve
like I’m going into science I could have
seen myself in it for the first time and
I had this new level of confidence I
never thought that that unplanned
hallway interaction with the student
teacher would result in a shift from
this general interest to a tangible
opportunity but it did and serendipitous
opportunities like that one led me on
doing a PhD was a life-changing
experience I had the privilege to work
in a lab and conduct real research I
mentored students I supervised projects
me one of my projects involved working
with an element a lanthanide on the
bottom of the to bottom two rows in the
periodic table called terbium number 65
look it up
and I worked at erbium and used its
luminescent properties to develop
detection tools that could potentially
monitor disease processes such as cancer
and Alzheimer’s it was so cool to be
able to work in an environment where
being wrong wasn’t the end of the world
I had to constantly feel questions like
what are you trying to show here
what’s that can you explain this
experiment there might be something more
here to be honest sometimes I didn’t
know so my answer would be something
like that’s a very good question
um you see what happened was is for
anything I didn’t know I was driven to
fill gaps in my knowledge with more
knowledge it’s like science was
constantly building on this foundation
and I was only scratching the surface of
what I could know it was an incredible
experience and it was super humbling to
know that I had finally become the
scientist that I never saw growing up so
desperately needed
but with this I still struggled cuz my
story this journey from curiosity to a
PhD in chemistry is awesome but it is
only one story and I was always made to
feel like I was an anomaly like oh you
like science Wow good for you you just
continue doing that great not many
people do that like you but good keep
going but I knew the power of the
opportunities that I got I knew that the
opportunities that I had changed my mind
changed so many of the negative and
incorrect perceptions that I had so I
was left with the question what am I
gonna do
because now I’m PhD students working in
a lab at a prominent University in
Canada realizing that not much has
changed since I was in Middle School I
still didn’t see myself anywhere I was
the only one of me in a lot of my
lecturers classes and labs I would go to
international conferences and be asked
oh you’re here for this conference my
friend I’m presenting yes I am but all
of these personal realizations coincided
with the rise of stem learning for those
of you who have never heard of stem it
stands for science technology
engineering and math the importance of
which has grown exponentially over the
last number of years you can’t go
anywhere without hearing about stem stem
is toted as the answer to our world’s
future problems research strongly
indicates that youth must have early and
positive experiences in stem in order to
be connected to critical thinking skills
and future jobs you have kids out here
coding apps running biotech companies
stem is opening doors that were never
possible when I was younger it was
awesome and I was all about it I was
part of it but in knowing that I also
had to critically ask but who is left
out who does not have access to these
opportunities because when I grew up now
where I was growing up where I still was
during my PhD I was still hearing the
same sentiments that I heard when I was
8 years old that science is boring that
I don’t want to be involved that I don’t
want to be engaged
and there wasn’t the same urgency to
push youth in Capri as there was to push
youth all over the world to pursue stem
youth some low-income communities are
often left out of this conversation
accessible opportunities accessible stem
learning opportunities are hard to come
by
interestingly enough very little
research has been done on the
implications of this in a Canadian
context but if we consider this city
alone that means that potentially
thousands of youth are missing out
I felt indebted to use the platform of
my PhD to do something about this I
would go into lab every day loving it
being part of research being humbled and
honored to have this opportunity and go
back to my community and realize that if
something doesn’t change I will be an
anomaly in 2011 I had the unique
opportunity of volunteering with an
organization that was doing work in this
very area visions of science today I am
the CEO of that organization and with a
group of intelligent brilliant people
our mission is to empower youth from
low-income communities through
as an organization that is focused on
working in this space we acknowledge the
barriers the unique barriers faced with
these that we work with barriers that
are augmented when you consider race and
gender but beyond the barriers we see
vital community assets youth like nagual
and alpha to young black woman that I
had the privilege of meeting about four
years ago in our community stomach clubs
programs in one of our locations they
will tell you themselves that initially
they weren’t even sure about their
engagement in stem or interest they were
reluctant to answer questions or ask
them but now they are vocal confident
advocates for stem who invest in their
communities the same way that they were
invested giving opportunities to youth
and by providing free accessible and
consistent stem programming we’re making
this impact with over 500 youth from 24
communities across the Greater Toronto
Area and we’re just getting started and
as a leader of this incredible
organization imma take this time to
reject the deficit based narratives that
we are commonly inundated with
narratives that suggest that youth from
low-income communities lack social
capital and they are doomed for
destruction without our intervention
actually we are doomed for destruction
if we continue to underestimate and
overlook the richness of potential that
lies within every single one of these
communities where where are we gonna be
if we do not empower youth like in a
wall in tarifa youth who are resilient
industrious bright who deserve to have a
chance and a choice of participating and
remaining curious I wanted to be part of
that and to be able to go to work every
day knowing that we’re trying to change
perceptions it is incredible and the sad
thing is if you had told me when I was
12 that I would one day be working in a
research lab on an element called
terbium I wouldn’t have believed you and
that is a problem
science technology engineering and math
are not regulated to subjects that you
learn at school it’s an endless field of
opportunity and discovery and everyone
should be able to participate but to me
stem exists because of people who
channel their curiosity into discovering
and understanding the world around us
and to developing solutions to make it a
better place but that means that the
people present matter the people
that are at those tables decide what
gets researched what gets developed who
it benefits and we as a society have to
become very uncomfortable when there are
voices missing at the table we have to
become very uncomfortable when we create
in the absence of who we really are if I
were to say the truth if we could
somehow know all of the youth all of
their locations the youth who have the
solutions to our world’s future problems
if we knew where they lived we would
find them and give them everything they
need but unfortunately it does not work
that way so we have the collective
responsibility of dismantling the
systemic barriers that exist to keep
some youth in and some use out of this
when I think about the potential of the
youth that we work with I know that our
future solutions that the next nobel
prize in some sort of chemistry or
physics field is just germinating inside
the mind of a youth that lives in a
low-income community in Toronto because
I have no reason to believe that that’s
not true and to those youth to youth who
have felt overlooked who have felt like
they don’t deserve to be in a space
because they don’t see themselves I want
curiosity is your birthright have the
courage to remain curious about the
world around you have the courage to be
curious about the problems that you see
in your community I don’t know where
that courage will lead you maybe it will
lead you to finding out why you fall in
the subway but I already told you that’s
inertia so that one was for free but
maybe it will lead you to asking what is
artificial intelligence and how do I
make how do I use it to make the world a
better place next I would say STEM needs
you we need you
you are the breakthrough that we have
been waiting for no pressure but know
that you can do this I struggled so much
with having the courage to share my
story on platforms like this because
it’s not awkward when things that make
you painful things that have embarrassed
you in the past people want to know
about it people want to hear about it
but as I’ve traveled as I have journeyed
as I have had the privilege of going
from curiosity to
HD I know that being able to share my
story is important so the last thing
I’ll say is when you get to wherever it
is that you will get to do not forget
where you came from and the people that
helped you get there because even though
there is not a mold for you to fit into
you might need to become the mold for
someone else thank you [Applause]
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