Adaobi Adibe is an Electrical and Electronic Engineering (BEng) student at the University of Manchester. She was the lead Venture Capitalist at Campus Capital, a £2.5 million fund investing in early stage technology companies. Her work in Venture Capital and clean energy led to her being awarded the number one black student in the UK by the prestigious Future Leaders magazine, and nominated by the U.S. embassy as one of the top six rising entrepreneurs in the UK.
Arenike Adebajo is a content producer working across the arts and publishing industries. She graduated from the University of Cambridge with a First Class degree in English. At university, she served as the facilitator for FLY, a forum for women and non-binary people of colour and co-edited the group’s first zine.
Ayomide Ayorinde is a 4th year medical student at Imperial College London, currently intercalating a BSc in Management into her degree. She currently works for the Imperial College Outreach Team. Outside of this, she was director of the 2017/18 Afrogala, Imperial College ACS’s annual cultural show, and before this, the Vice-President of the society.
Barbara Falana is currently studying Medicine at King’s College London. She has interests in social mobility and innovation technology. She has worked and continues to work closely with the student access and social mobility team within her university. She is currently working as the beneficiary director for Step Forward, a social enterprise with the intention of preventing soil-transmitted diseases such as Mossy Foot which is heavily prevalent in underdeveloped countries.
Courtney Daniella Boateng is a Human, Social and Political Sciences graduate from the University of Cambridge. She found a love for honest and relatable content creation as well as public speaking leading to her speaking at multiple universities and press features in Teen Vogue, Buzzfeed, BBC and many others. Transitioning from being a full time hairstylist simply to sustain herself and her family, she found herself pursuing entrepreneurship and began consulting on business development for other beauty brands focussing on Black Hair & Beauty whilst also consulting for 10 Downing Street and the National Union of Students (NUS) on how best to aid young entrepreneurs and financially support students in poverty.
Eireann Attridge is an Education and English graduate from the University of Cambridge. Growing up in a single parent working class household in South London, she became concerned with factors that influenced educational disadvantage. She later went on to serve as the Student Unions’ Access and Funding Officer, running the country’s largest student led access initiative and also established the Cambridge Class Act campaign, a campaign for students who identify as being from working class and educationally disadvantaged backgrounds. After university, Eireann worked in a school in East London, supporting students to apply to university and designing programmes around university preparedness. Currently, she is studying for an MSc in Education (Higher Education) at the University of Oxford and has an offer to start her PhD there in 2019. Eireann aims to work within university administration and admissions in order to make universities an inclusive space.
Fope Olaleye is a student at the University of Newcastle where they study Politics. During their time at university they were elected BAME Network President, Feminist Society President and NUSU Part Time Officer. They also sat on the NUS Black Students Committee and National Executive Council as Black Students Campaign second place, and they are now the NUS Black Students’ Officer. In these roles Fope has campaigned to improve the experiences of BAME students across the UK with a particular focus on black women and QTIPOC. They have been featured in Dazed, i-D and on BBC Radio 1xtra, and are a regular guest speaker and workshop facilitator at universities across the country.
Kenya Greenidge is a Human, Social and Political Sciences graduate from the University of Cambridge. While she was there she served as Cambridge ACS’s Secretary 2016/17 and played an active role in the society’s executive committee. She has a particular interest in the sociology of race and gender.
Micha Frazer-Carroll is an award-nominated journalist writing on race, feminism and mental health. Formerly working at HuffPost UK, Micha is the arts and culture editor at gal-dem, a magazine created by women and non-binary people of colour, and founded Blueprint, a magazine on mental health. With bylines in ROOKIE, Black Ballad and Dazed, she now writes regularly for the Guardian. After graduating with first class honours in Psychology and Sociology, Micha served as Cambridge University’s Welfare and Rights Officer in 2017-18, a role in which she lobbied the University Counselling Service to introduce a counselling scheme catered specifically to students of colour.
Mikai McDermott is a digital content creator and entrepreneur offering ‘life advice, beauty and the tablespoon of honesty you need.’ Her growing cult following has earned her over 2 million YouTube views, over 30k subscribers and over 30k followers on Instagram. A bold and proud advocate for women’s issues, fashion and beauty, the University of Warwick graduate has crafted a niche for herself as a trusted opinion among the underground beauty community. Having collaborated with BBC Stories, Tangle Teezer and Schwarzkopf (among others), Mikai has worked on authentic collaborations with high engagement rates anchored by informative content. Alongside building an online presence, Mikai runs a hair and beauty brand which has amassed more than 10k followers in just under a year.
Nathania Williams is studying history at the University of Cambridge. She is of Jamaican heritage but most of her family now live in Manchester, which is where she’s from. She is passionate about access to higher education and mental health issues in the black community. She was Cambridge ACS’s Welfare Officer and now serves as the society’s Vice President. She is currently active in her college’s Feminist Society and FLY, a forum for women and non-binary people of colour, as well as a member of Trinity College’s History Society.
Renée Kapuku is currently a postgraduate student at Harvard Graduate School of Education. During her time as an undergraduate at the University of Oxford, she was elected as the first BME representative at her Oxford college, and worked with the Oxford Campaign for Racial Equality to tackle racial discrimination on campus. Renée was also elected president of the Oxford African and Caribbean society in her second year, hosting Oxford’s first black history month showcase with Reggie Yates, and organising the #BlackMenAndWomenOfOxford viral campaign. She coordinated the UK’s largest student-led conference for high-achieving Year 12 state-school students of African and Caribbean heritage, receiving critical acclaim from the BBC, general media, and support from the elected Person of the Year, Stormzy. Earlier this year, Renée was awarded full funding by the Kennedy Memorial Trust to support her studies in International Education Policy at Harvard.
Saredo Qassim Mohamed is a Somali-Canadian writer and photographer. She is currently pursuing a Master’s degree at the London School of Economics and Political Science in the International Migration and Public Policy Programme. During her undergraduate years, she became a Canadian National Youth Poetry champion and represented the city of Toronto in international poetry festivals. As the President of Western University’s Black Students’ Association, Saredo worked to create spaces of healing and community for black students on her campus. After graduating, she worked with a local NGO in Somalia to promote the social and political empowerment of vulnerable Somali women and girls.
Saskia Ross is currently a student at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. They graduated from the University of Cambridge with a degree in Human, Social and Political Sciences. While at university, Saskia primarily worked in theatrical spaces and laid the groundwork for a more diverse and welcoming scene, becoming dedicated to widening participation in a historically elite and white community. They created the Cambridge BME Group, an online space where students of colour could share ideas, promote their work and find a safe community of like-minded people. They then directed Cambridge’s inaugural BME Shakespeare performance, and one of Cambridge’s largest all-black casts in a production of Fences by August Wilson. They also facilitated the creation of BME Footlights smokers and musical theatre bar nights.