Let Out Your Inner Leader

How many of you can say you appreciate nature? Raise your hands. And where do you stand on a scale of 1 (I hate bugs) to 10 ( I eat grass)? I wouldn’t say I’m a 10, but I did eat grass once, so I think that means I appreciate nature quite a bit. What this ridiculous spiel is really supposed to convey is that from a young age, I was very much connected with the environment around me.

I gardened with my mom, I loved making dirt pies, and to put myself in an animal’s shoes, yes, I did sample some grass.

For these reasons, when faced with my first science fair project in seventh grade, choosing the environmental science category was almost inevitable. The topic I chose was saltwater intrusion. For my eighth-grade science project, I dug deeper, to research the effects of saltwater intrusion and ozone depletion on Louisiana’s disappearing marsh grasses. That project gained national recognition in 2019, when I won a top prize at a national middle school STEM competition called Broadcom MASTERS.

However, my outlook on science changed the day I received the award. After the awards ceremony and during the interviews, I was informed that I was the first Black American to win a top award in the history of the competition, which had recently celebrated its 10th anniversary.

I was baffled. Now at the time, for a 14-year-old, the adrenaline of the night did not allow me to truly absorb the magnitude of that sad fact. But two questions did come to mind: How was I supposed to respond to that? And why on earth had there not been more?

The answers to those questions are actually very complex and have all to do with inequity — power inequity, wealth inequity, educational inequity. Not even 10 minutes ago I was on stage accepting my award with a big smile and heart, and all of a sudden, I was being asked how it felt to be a role model for young Black girls interested in STEM.

Rest assured, my answer was terrible. I had only been in the STEM field for two years. But that question did make me think. How many times have I felt out of place in a science-related space? How many people did I see at these events who looked like me? In fact, out of all 30 finalists of the Broadcom MASTERS competition that year, I was the only Black girl there.

Later on, I realized that my experience wasn’t a rare occurrence. I realized there is so much young talent out there I have not met or who couldn’t have experienced such an event because of their unequal circumstances. So, in 2019, in addition to my science research, my passion turned to advocating for low-income, minority students, especially Black women, to pursue STEM careers. I helped set up a series of ongoing workshops that combined STEM trainings and presentations with environmental-awareness activities. I call these the Conservation and Restoration Conjunction.

The workshops started off as small meetings at my local library in New Orleans, which included activities for children and adolescents that showed them how to reduce, reuse, and recycle, and also helped them to connect with what was happening to the Louisiana coast. Now my effort has the support of my school board and the city council, as well as researchers at Loyola University and the University of New Orleans. As a cohort leader for the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, I have also founded multiple native-plant and oyster-reef restoration projects. My work and initiatives have since received recognition from the US Department of Agriculture, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, New Orleans Geological Society, and Tulane University.

Back in the 7th grade, as a young, partially clueless 13-year-old girl, I did not yet know I had a place in the environmental movement, nor did I realize the impact my backyard science research would have, the connections I’d make, nor the lifelong inspiration I’d gain. I know it now. And you should know it too.

Please remember that in all of us there is a leader; all that is left is to let that inner leader out.