Black History Month - Meet Esther Osarfo-Mensah

I have been very lucky to have supportive family and friends, and teachers who believed in me at school. All of these people gave me faith that I could succeed in whatever I chose to do. Having always enjoyed chemistry and been fascinated by materials science and engineering, I’ve been encouraged pursue my passions.

Whilst at university, I really can’t remember coming across anyone senior who looked like me in my field. This made me very unsure if staying in academia was something I could cope with, and consequently I left research behind. It took me many years to build up the confidence to go back and continue working on a subject area I had never stopped loving. For this, I have to especially thank all of the amazing Black people in STEM I engaged and became friends with in those years.

I often think about this quote from Toni Morrison: “The very serious function of racism … is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and so you spend 20 years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says that you have no art so you dredge that up. Somebody says that you have no kingdoms and so you dredge that up. None of that is necessary. There will always be one more thing.

Follow your intuitions - they are almost always right.