PhD Journal Of A Ghanaian Woman in Stem

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  • Honored to Receive A Fellowship

    I am excited to share that I’ve been selected as a 2026 Wayne L. Ryan Fellow. This was the best news to begin the semester and came at a really meaningful point in my PhD journey. Over the past couple of years, I’ve spent a lot of time working on my dissertation research and perhaps most…

  • Growth Lessons From My Cactus

    I was scrolling through my gallery when I came across a picture of my cactus (left). It was one of the plants I bought when I first moved into my apartment. I was surprised by it. It looked small, cute, and nothing like the thing standing in my living room now. The only reason I…

  • Five Days in Louisville

    Earlier this month, I was at the FASEB conference on Protein Folding in the Cell. These meetings are small with a few hundred people in one hotel. There’s no crowd to disappear into. You eat breakfast next to someone, watch them ask a question two hours later, then end up beside them again at dinner.…

  • A Good Spring Semester and the End of my Third Year

    As I wrap up this semester, I am taking some time to reflect on the past year as a scientist. It has been a memorable, yet trying year. I have felt disappointment and joy. I have been excited about my work, yet quietly questioned whether I belong in it. It is a strange combination of…

  • “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.…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • ’25 Wrapped

    Reflecting on 2025, it has been a year truly for the books. A year so profoundly challenging in many ways, yet deeply rewarding. As a scientist, my biggest lesson was making peace with the understanding that not every problem has a solution. I am learning to show up with greater consistency in how I approach…

  • Onwards

    Lately, my research has been a cycle of hard work and unexpected results, testing my belief in my own progress. Despite long hours and countless experiments, I’ve had more dead ends than breakthroughs. While I’m blessed with a support system that remind me I’m on the right path, it’s hard to silence the doubt that…

  • A Lasting Lesson, A Little Win

    As I begin the third year of my PhD, I’ve been reflecting a lot on the pace of research and how often it feels like two steps forward, one step back. A friend and college recently told me that it’s called ‘re-search ‘because you have to keep searching, again and again, to uncover the truth. Lately that…

  • What Exactly Is My PhD About?

    At the most basic level, what makes each of us unique is our DNA. Think of DNA as the instruction manual for building and running your body. A complete set of these instructions is called your genome. Unless you have an identical twin, your genome is entirely your own! And the fascinating part is that every…

  • One Step Closer: Officially A PhD Candidate

    Two nights ago, my mind was a mess. “You’ve been preparing for this for weeks” I told myself. “So why do you feel like you’ve retained nothing?” Today, the day after, here’s the update: I passed with a unanimous “Yes” from my committee! God is good. It still feels surreal. Now that I think back…

  • Second Year Into My PhD

    It’s hard to believe I am in my second semester of my second year and we’re already four months into 2025. Time is flying! These past few months have been a whirlwind of learning, adapting, and growing, especially as I navigate the second year of my PhD. There’s been a lot of research (of course), but also…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • More Than Just Science: Selecting My Dissertation Lab

    It’s official—after careful consideration, numerous discussions, and a fair amount of soul-searching, I’ve made one of the most important decisions in my PhD. I’ve chosen my dissertation lab. It feels a lot like embarking on a new journey, full with both excitement and cautious expectation. While I would like to belabor this post with all…

  • 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.

  • Inside My First Semester: Lessons and Triumphs

    The first few weeks of my PhD program resembled a complex dance of enthusiasm and nerves. In my department, I found a community of scientists with different focuses, all passionate about research. But dealing with all the coursework was challenging, making me feel overwhelmed at times. My first semester of graduate school passed by so…

  • 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…

  • Four Tips For Choosing The Right Grad School And Program

    Now you are certain you want to go to graduate school and you know exactly what to pursue, but there’s the big question, where? Prioritizing what is important to you and what will help you succeed is something that you should do. Find out what is most important and valuable, and all subsequent evaluations will…

  • Email Template For Program Cordinators

    Sending cold emails to professors could be helpful for some schools, but most schools in the US do not admit students directly into a lab. The better alternative is to reach out to the department’s designated resource person to learn more on how you can increase your chances of being accepted into the program. Hopefully,…

  • Graduate Application Information Spreadsheet

    Applying to graduate school can be very long, stressful, and discouraging. With this application information spreadsheet template, you can stay organized. That way, you would be able plan ahead of time and get everything in order without feeling pressured!

  • Application Guide | An African’s Perspective

    As an African student applying to graduate school, you need to acknowledge that your competition is much harder because the acceptance rate for international students is lower. Knowing how to navigate the application process is a crucial part of your application. I applied to five R1 research universities in the United States with only my…