Yemi Abe

   22 years old
   2:1 Grade Average
   Design Engineering (MEng)
   Imperial College London

In his role as ACS outreach officer, Yemi has created a string of new initiatives – including ‘ACStem’, a conference aimed at encouraging Year 12 black students to pursue careers in STEM fields. Securing £5,000 in funding from Imperial Outreach, he collaborated across departments and led an on-the-day team of 20 to coordinate logistics and session planning.

The conference drew in 100 school students and a panel of guest speakers from medicine, engineering, the life sciences, computing, maths and finance, as well as a talk from an Imperial vice provost who heads up EDI.

Elsewhere, Yemi serves on his university’s Outreach Black Student Advisory Board, which aims to increase diversity and representation of black students by providing a supportive platform for feedback and addressing barriers.

The board also interrogates whether Imperial’s seed fund projects are playing their part in benefiting students of black heritage. In fact, Yemi has applied for the seed fund himself to raise money for a science challenge project targeting Year 10 students of black heritage.

Next, he plans either to take up a PhD in bioengineering, pursue postgraduate medicine or work in medtech consultancy.

Where will you be in 10 years?

It depends on which of these paths I choose, but one thing I know is that I would like to be doing more outreach.

---

View other recognized Future Leaders in the Future Leaders Magazine, or view the top 10.