When Tiyahna Ridley-Padmore, BScSoc, and Merryl-Royce Ndema-Moussa, BSc, published their children’s book, Trailblazers: The Black Pioneers Who Have Shaped Canada, the uOttawa alumni brought to light 40 stories of Canada’s Black history that have for too long remained undertold. This February, we’ve teamed up with Ridley-Padmore and Ndema-Moussa to celebrate Black History Month and create new portraits and poems of four Black uOttawa alumni who have made a significant mark on the University.
Meet Anna Ampaw
Anna is a scientist,
with special expertise
She studies tiny molecules
to help us cure disease.
African women have long been scientists
leaders in STEM and innovation
But when Anna started her career,
she couldn’t see that representation.
Her classes lacked diversity
Her labs were filled with men
So Anna soon resolved
to bring Black women into STEM.
She started up a not-for-profit
that created opportunities
for building scholarships and skills
that benefited Black communities.
When people feel that they aren’t seen,
they may struggle to find their place
So Anna helps Black women in the sciences
to boldly take up their rightful space.
The two passions that unite Anna Ampaw’s academic career and her extracurricular efforts are her love of chemistry and her desire to see more women of colour represented in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).
Ampaw is a two-time uOttawa alumna: she earned an undergraduate degree in science in 2014 and a PhD in bioorganic chemistry in 2022. She recently started her postdoctoral research in Toronto, and each new experience inches Ampaw closer to her dream of leading a research group, becoming a professor, and being a role model for young Black women in STEM. “Going into university, I never had a Black science prof. I don’t know how I stayed in this field because I was always the minority. If you’re not the minority, you don’t really know how isolating it feels to have no one you can relate to,” describes Ampaw. “One of my main goals is to be the person that others can look to and say ‘I have this Black prof who teaches science in her field’. [I want people to know] there’s different possibilities out there and it doesn’t matter what you look like.”
In February 2021, Ampaw founded the Empowering Female Minds in STEM (EFeMS), a non-profit organization to support women of colour in exploring their full range of career possibilities. This initiative helps women in Africa pursue or continue studies in STEM by building their skills and confidence, fostering community, hosting events, and offering mentorship programs and scholarships. EFeMS partners with two organizations in Ghana, where Ampaw still has family. Although she was nervous when she initially shared the idea for her organization on Twitter, Ampaw is thankful and encouraged by the positive response from people across North America and Africa.
In the future, Ampaw hopes to take a bit of time to rest — she did just finish her PhD, after all — and to see how Black members of the STEM community are coming together, something she witnessed during the pandemic. “I also hope that the number of Black women who go into STEM increases, and that what we’re doing [with EFeMS] leads to that increase,” adds Ampaw. “There’s power in numbers. The more we support each other, the further we can go.”