Health & Wellbeing
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“Enjoy your failures”
I was recently in the company of a successful scientist. He shared a lot about his journey, the choices he’d made, the turns his career had taken. He talked about many things, but three words stuck with me: enjoy your failures. After that, I barely heard the rest. The phrase kept ringing in my mind.…
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What’s Been on My Plate Lately
Food has a way of telling you where your head is at. Not in a dramatic way, but in a reflective manner. What we crave can be telling of who we are. It is true that “we are what we eat”. The one meal I’ve been making lately is boiled yam with kontomire stew. Kontomire is…
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Home 🇬🇭
12 days home. 12 good days. After 2 years 5 months and 15 days, I flew back home. After being away for so long, 12 days in Ghana felt both short and deeply full. Not like any place, but a place where I belong. Sitting with family, catching up, watching how everyone has grown, life…
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Celebrating The Little Wins
As a graduate student (or any student), it’s all too easy to get caught up in the big picture— the working experiments, the published articles, and the ultimate goal of acquiring that desired PhD. We often ignore the little things that pave the way forward. I’ve been making a conscious effort to celebrate the seemingly…
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A Year Into My PhD – 3 Lessons
1. My PhD experience is more personal than collective. No two Ph.D. experiences are the same, and your research is unique to you. In a lab, you will most likely share a similar research area, but the content and context will be unique to each of you. You will be delving into areas of research…
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An Almost total eclipse experience
Yesterday, I had the incredible opportunity to witness a celestial phenomenon that has captivated humanity for centuries – a total eclipse; well, almost : ). While my previous encounter with a solar eclipse dates back to 2006 during my middle school days, the magic and wonder of it never ceased to amaze me. As I…
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Tastes of Home: Recreating Ghanaian Comfort Foods Abroad
Moving often means leaving behind the familiar comforts of home. I miss family and friends, but there are other losses that cut deeply too – especially the nostalgic smells and tastes of my mother’s Ghanaian cooking. For me, food is so much more than sustenance; it embodies love, community, celebration, and heritage.
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PhD And Mental Health
From finishing my first rotation to beginning my second, I am reflecting on how my research experience has been and how different it is from the education I received in Ghana. More importantly, I am learning that a PhD program can be very overwhelming and I need to prioritize my health and wellbeing. The first…
PhD Journal Of A Ghanaian Woman in Stem 