Cressana Williams-Massey is a Jamaican-born research chemist and science educator who has over thirteen years of classroom experience teaching at the secondary and tertiary levels of the Jamaican education system before migrating to Canada. In addition to teaching, she worked six years part-time as a Moderator and Assistant Examiner with the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) and has spent most of her career focused on coordinating academic and community development programs for Black youth. As part of her role, Cressana Williams-Massey works collaboratively with other outreach practitioners and departments within Smith Engineering to provide relevant experiential learning opportunities for Black youth and other racialized children who participate in the BYiS workshops. As a science educator, she finds nothing more gratifying than to see pupils she has nurtured becoming professionals in diverse STEM fields.
Our teaching staff comprises a Mathematics and Physics teacher, a graduate Materials Engineer, a graduate Chemical Engineer, three undergraduate Queen’s University students and a local high school student. Instructors are of various ethnicities and cultural heritages for example, Nigerian, Nigerian-Canadian, Ghanian-Canadian, Caribbean descent, and Indian to meet the needs of the participants who share the same or similar cultural heritages.
Outreach Coordinator Yvonne (M. Eng.) is a licensed Materials & Metallurgy Engineer (COREN, Nigeria) with over 5 years of manufacturing experience working with petrochemicals such as plastics, PVC, oil well drilling and completion. Before migrating to Canada to pursue post graduate studies at Queen’s University, she helped to organize training programs and activities related to health and manufacturing. She is a team player who absolutely loves working with children, hiking, travelling and experiencing new cultures.
Janki is a Mathematics and Physics teacher from India who is now a proud Queen’s University graduate. Before migrating to Canada, Janki worked as a secondary school teacher and at one point as a Grade Coordinator. Janki is passionate about learning new things. She loves to create fun and engaging lessons that integrates coding with Mathematics and Science.
Olumide is a chemical engineer (M. Eng.) with both industrial and educational work experience. He is team oriented and strives to maintain the highest performance standards with whatever task that he is assigned. Olu is a friendly, organized, patient and resourceful person who pays keen attention to detail. Fun facts about Olu: he is very passionate about whatever he engages himself in, he loves to travel and loves taking pictures of himself doing fun activities.
Davina is a second year Arts and Science student at Queen’s University pursuing a major in Biochemistry and Life Science. She is a proud second-generation Ghanaian immigrant and thrice published author of short stories for teenagers. Davina loves to cook, bake, and create origami.
Evangelyn is a Catholic high school student-instructor who loves working with children. She especially loves the mission of Black youth in STEM as she has actively seen how it is changing the lives of Black youth living in Kingston. Fun facts about EJ are she loves to socialize, read romance novels, and has a very large sneakers collection.
Arianna is a first-year concurrent education student at Queen’s University who is very passionate about STEM and working with children. She takes keen interest in contributing to the delivery of opportunities for students from under-represented communities, and programs geared at empowering young girls to pursue STEM careers. She has a kind and enthusiastic personality, loves working with children and looks forward to the future of being a science teacher.
Dilly is a Nigerian fourth year computer engineering student at Queen’s University who enjoys working with children. Dilly loves to be involved in programs geared at encouraging more women to pursue STEM careers and has been engaged in several outreach programs as a volunteer, mentor and instructor. Some fun facts about Dilly are she loves to spend time with family and friends, going on family trips all over the world, making fond memories, and absolutely does not like the sound of fireworks.
Aisling is a fourth year Health Science student at Queen’s University who prides herself as always being an advocate for creating an inclusive, welcoming environment for students from diverse backgrounds. Aisling is one of the longest serving instructors in the BYiS program and loves to engage in community building activities and travel.
Paul is a PhD student in the Faculty of Education, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario. He is a research fellow with the Revolutionary Demand for Happiness (RDH) Working Group, Department of Black Studies, Queen’s University. Prior to and since joining Queen’s University, Paul has maintained a vibrant and robust academic agenda which lie at the intersection of education and learning, migration, Black studies, and social justice. He engages these subjects through a combination of creative, critical, transformative, and transgressive lenses. Paul taught in the Department of Adult Education and Lifelong Learning, Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria before moving to Canada. He, together with Dr. Katherine McKittrick, is the convener of The Poetics of Migration. As a poet, Paul enjoys writing poetry and organizing community poetry events.
If you are interested in becoming a BYiS instructor or mentor, simply reach out to us by email at black.youth.STEM@queensu.ca.
You may also look for job postings in the Queen's University's Career Services portal (MyCareer job board).
If you are a Queen’s University Work Study applicant, please reach out to us by email.
We would love to hear from you. Please send us an email at black.youth.STEM@queensu.ca and follow us on Instagram @black.youth.in.stem.