For as long as I can remember, I dreamed of studying monkeys, apes, and tropical forests. I would line up my toy animals and give speeches about primate conservation, not realizing my play was prophecy. Despite the violences that surrounded me as a young Black girl growing up in 90s NYC, I was determined to become a natural scientist. And I did. For over 15 years, I’ve researched wildlife and applied conservation globally - from orangutans in Borneo’s peatswamp forests to human-wildlife conflict in Cameroon to biocultural stewardship in the Solomon Islands. Working alongside Black and Indigenous communities - whose knowledge contributes immensely to our understanding of the wild while still being dehumanized as such - I began to see how natural science has been shaped by oppressive systems. My dream transformed.

At the intersection of my work as a scientist and leader in the movement for Black lives, I lent fire to a global movement for decolonial science. As organizing co-chair of Black Youth Project NYC in 2016, I co-led political education and direct actions for Black liberation. I co-founded and co-chaired the Society for Conservation Biology’s Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity Committee from 2015 through 2017. In recognition of my leadership advancing equity in STEM, I was honored as one of Grist Magazine’s 50 “Fixers”. My invited contribution to Motherboard Tech VICE Magazine for Black History Month 2018, “The Future of Science is Black,” heralded a global turn towards more liberatory futures of science. I’ve shared this work with diverse audiences internationally, from community forums to keynote lectures at Yale University and New York University.

In 2017, I followed a deep calling to archive my ancestral lineage in Guyana, the Caribbean South American nation known as “the land of many waters.” Guyana is one of the most densely forested countries in South America - these highly biodiverse forests cover 80% of the country’s surface and hold the lungs of the earth. Once the second poorest country in the Western hemisphere, the discovery of mass oil reserves in 2015 initiated an unprecedented transformation. Guyana is now one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Our capital city of Georgetown, transformed by centuries of plantation agriculture, is projected to be underwater within the next 5-10 years. In the face of such monumental change, I set out to trace how our communities, forests, and wildlife have come to be and create a future beyond colonial imaginaries.

Through 9 years of research and community building, my project “Decolonizing the Wild in the Land of Many Waters” was born. I center Black and Indigenous sciences to explore how riverine ecosystems, stretching from our interior to the coast, are co-produced by communities and howler monkeys, earth's loudest land animal. Through ecology, archives, and epistemic repair, my project is building a ground-breaking understanding of our people’s natural history, wildlife, and the sciences that will allow us to survive a rapidly changing planet.

I received an offer from the University of Oxford’s DPhil in the School of Geography and Environment to complete my project. In addition to Oxford’s esteemed faculty, there are resources here essential to my work held nowhere else in the world - from colonial maps of plantation estates in Guyana at the Bodleian Library to wildlife specimens collected from Guyana’s interior held at the Natural History Museum. As the first in my immediate family to graduate university, receiving a DPhil offer from the University of Oxford is a monumental achievement. Less than 3% of Oxford's post-graduate students are Black.

International student funding is extremely limited this year and I am not able to fund this myself. The university requires proof that the first year of funding is secured by August 31 2026 for students to attend. In realizing this lifelong dream, I’m calling in community who connect with my journey and the necessity of this critical research.

The full costs for the first year are as follows:

Tuition fee for International Students: £32,960/year

Living costs: £25000/year

International Student Visa Application Fee: £558

Visa Health Insurance Surcharge: £3880 (total for 4 years of DPhil)

International Relocation Costs: £2600

Total Request: £65000/$88000

I appreciate any contributions from individuals, environmental science organizations, foundations, and philanthropists invested in advancing more liberatory futures of science and coexistence with our wild kin.

Thank you so much for your support!