I have been able to conduct research in fields that I love because of support from my community

I strongly believe that science communication and community building are important for the tangible impacts they have to people’s lives and to our science.

The public should be informed of and be able to influence the work of scientific researchers. Community-building for minoritised groups becomes vital for retention and progression within predominantly white academic and research institutions.

My involvement with academic and charitable communities

I co-founded the African-Caribbean Researcher’s Collective in 2019 following the ‘Broken Pipeline’ report released by Leading Routes. The report detailed that over a three-year period (2016/2017 – 2018/2019), just 1.2% of the 19,868 studentships awarded by all UKRI research councils went to Black or Black Mixed students and only 30 of those were from Black Caribbean background. Our group exists to unify funded Black-British Caribbean PhD researchers and ultimately increase the number of those on funded programs.

I was a Trustee on the board of the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society (NRAS) from 2020-2023. NRAS is the largest patient-led charity for those with juvenile idiopathic arthritis and rheumatoid arthritis in the UK. As an NRAS board member, I represented the voices of young people with RA and provided a scientific perspective on the charity’s work. I was the inaugural chair of the NRAS ‘Rheum for Inclusion’ board, and was a member of the renumeration sub-committee.