My name is Ese. I'm a cultural kiwi, meaning my ancestors are from the region now called Nigeria but I was raised in New Zealand. Auckland, to be exact.
A combination of the choices I've made and the choices of those who came before me, places me at the intersection of many groups. Black, woman, queer, polyamorous, child of migrants, lower-to-middle class transitionary, educated, but the identity I most relate to is scientist.
My love of learning has spanned the three decades of my life time. As a young person I felt lost in a world not of my making. Through books I learnt that my experience added only a fraction to what made up the world. Learning to look at life through the lens of a scientist, by breaking things down to understand their connections, I began to realize how fragmented our world has slowly become.
I'm a romantic. I read about the debates and scientific exploration of the 19th and early 20th century and yearned for my chance to sit in those adorned libraries and discuss classical physics and modern philosophy with elbow-padded academics. To ponder the mysterious universe, from galaxies to atoms to DNA.
When I finally started graduate school studying chemistry, I realized things had changed, if they'd ever truly been that way. The world and life of a scientist isn't one idealized by the early champions of enlightenment thinking. Our discovery is driven by power and prestige rather than communal curiosity.
It is here that I decided to deviate from that definition and redefine myself as a something different. To innovate a new way of creating knowledge and information. Now I work as a sustainable scientist, a community scientist, a decentralized scientist, an open scientist, a science communicator, and a science educator.
All my additions to this community will try to define and exemplify these definitions. To show people the way I want to see science, by doing science in the way I want to see done. You are welcome to join me!
