Valedictorian never waited for opportunities to knock

“I’m a living testament to the power of answered prayers,” says Akudo Eze-Onuorah.

It’s hard to argue otherwise. Eze-Onuorah’s delivering the valedictorian address at McMaster’s morning convocation ceremony on June 19 – her parents are flying in from Nigeria the day before and will be in the audience. A few weeks after graduation, Eze-Onuorah’s joining a biomedical start-up in Mississauga.

Today, she’s sitting at the bench in professor Juliet Daniel’s research lab in the Michael G. DeGroote Centre for Learning and Discovery. She joined Daniel’s research team in her second year and has been a standout team member ever since.

Daniel is a big reason why Eze-Onuorah chose McMaster. She was scouting universities online when she found the website for the Daniel Lab. “I was looking for someone who looks like me.” It turns out she didn’t have to look far –  Eze-Onuorah was completing Grade 12 at Columbia International College just down the street from McMaster where Daniel was doing her groundbreaking research.

Eze-Onuorah arrived at McMaster on a mission in September 2021. “It was important for me to meet Dr. Daniel after having learned so much about her.”

Eze-Onuorah wasn’t alone in thinking that Daniel was a big deal. Early in her first term, Eze-Onuorah took an introductory biology course where the professor gave a shout-out to Daniel’s pioneering research as a cancer biologist. Eze-Onuorah now wanted to personally thank Daniel for helping save the lives of young Black women through her research.

Soon after that class, the Black Student Success Centre held an event that brought together students and faculty (Eze-Onuorah would later get involved in the centre as a student ambassador and student lead planner and tutor with the Black High School Tutoring and Mentorship Program). Daniel was there and Eze-Onuorah headed her way along with every other student at the event. “What chance do I have,” Eze-Onuorah thought while standing in the crowd – Daniel had earlier told the group she wasn’t able to take on any more undergrads in her lab at that time.

Students were invited to book post-event meetings with faculty. For Eze-Onuorah, it was another chance to connect and make the case for mentorship.  “We’d talk over Zoom at the end of the day while Dr. Daniel was making her dinner.”

Looking back on those calls, Daniel describes Eze-Onuorah as an “international student who wasn’t going to let COVID-19 and virtual hybrid meetings limit her access and network-building to achieve her dreams. We bonded over those virtual meetings – it was refreshing to meet a student who knew exactly what they wanted and what they needed to do to get there.”

Persistence paid off for Eze-Onuorah – she was welcomed into the Daniel Lab in her second year and spent the rest of her undergrad working there as a student research volunteer, undergraduate research assistant and research placement student. She spent her days conducting wet lab experiments, analyzing data and diving deep into scientific literature. It’s where she completed her third-year research project and fourth-year senior thesis project with Daniel’s supervision and mentorship.

It’s also how Eze-Onuorah met another mentor who’d have a profound impact – assistant professor Shaiya Robinson was a former PhD student in the Daniel Lab. Daniel had been the first Black woman to become a faculty member in Science in 1999 – Robinson became the second in 2021 when she joined the School of Interdisciplinary Science.

While she had yet to take a course with Robinson, Eze-Onuorah reached out and asked if she’d be a mentor. Robinson sums up her mentee in one word – go-getter. “Akudo doesn’t wait for opportunities to land in her lap. If there’s something she wants, she’ll find a way to make it happen.”

When reviewing what courses to take, Robinson sometimes picked up on Eze-Onuorah’s self-doubt in her abilities. “Dr. Robinson kept telling me that I’m smart and can do hard things.” It’s a message Eze-Onuorah’s repeated to other students as a mentor and undergraduate program coordinator with McMaster’s Black Student Mentorship Program.

Robinson did a small thing that led to yet another a big opportunity for Eze-Onuorah. She’s long dreamed of  becoming an obstetrician-gynecologist. Watching a family member back in Nigeria struggle with fertility issues motivated Eze-Onuorah to become a doctor. “I had no idea how to get into medical school but McMaster seemed like the best place to start that journey.” Her dream’s the reason why Eze-Onuorah got involved with Black Aspiring Physicians at McMaster in her second year and went on to serve as the student club’s associate vice president and co-president.

With her undergrad coming to a close, Eze-Onuorah was a Women in Science and Engineering research conference giving a poster presentation about her fourth-year thesis. Robinson was there and invited Eze-Onuorah to sit at “the big people table” during lunch. That’s where she struck up a conversation with Latchmi Raghunanan, a guest panelist at the conference who’s driving innovations in vitro fertilization treatments as the CEO and Chief Science Officer with Maman Biomedical. They stayed in touch and starting in July, Eze-Onuorah will spend a year working at Raghunanan’s company thanks to a Mitacs grant that Daniel helped secure. Eze-Onuorah hopes that experience, combined with her Honours Life Sciences major and Biochemistry minor plus three years as an undergraduate researcher in the Daniel Lab, will boost her chances of getting into medical school.

“I’ve been blessed to do what I love with the people I love – people with the same drive and dreams who are always there to lift each other up.”

There’s one last prayer Eze-Onuorah needs answered. Her time at McMaster started with COVID-19 locking down the world and ends with this part of the world locking out international students. Those restrictions could decide where Eze-Onuorah goes to medical school once her work at Maman Biomedicals ends next year.

“These are trying times yet I remain a very faith-driven person. I believe there will still a path to achieving my dream.”  That path likely won’t be easy but as her mentors well know, if anyone can do hard things and create her own opportunities, it’s Eze-Onuorah.