Samantha T. Mensah

Sammy was a 6th-year chemistry graduate student in the groups of Professors Paul Weiss and Anne Andrews where she studied biosensors that detect neurotransmitters and other chemical biomarkers. She received her bachelor’s degree in chemistry, with a minor in nanoscience, from the University of Central Florida in 2017 and her master’s degree in materials chemistry in 2019 from UCLA.

Sammy also helped to build a culture that nurtures fellow Black and underrepresented scientists. In 2020, Sammy and her colleagues founded BlackInChem, a nonprofit that helps Black chemists network and support each other with the aim of boosting diversity in the sciences. That same year, Sammy and other UCLA graduate students started a fundraising campaign to endow an annual UCLA lectureship series to celebrate Black chemists and biochemists.