PhD student awarded George W. Vari Friendship award for their work in promoting diversity

Environmental engineering PhD student, Victoria Onyedibe, describes how engineering isn't a common career choice among the women in Nigeria, her home country. However, this only motivated her to promote diversity within her field.

“For the longest time, the popular belief that there are subjects for men and subjects for women has acted as a deterring factor to people pursuing their goals,” describes Onyedibe. “To find myself in a field dominated by men has made me realize that engineering has nothing to do with gender. The diversity within my research team has helped me to understand and appreciate the importance of different perspectives and the invaluable asset it is to research.”

To promote diversity within her community, Onyedibe began mentoring undergraduate and newly graduated female engineering students of colour on the importance of furthering their education. 

“Since it takes a few years of training to become an engineer, I believe that early awareness and introduction are key in getting younger people interested in this wonderful field,” says Onyedibe. “I am always eager to give talks to younger people to make them interested in engineering and I like to add an element of fun to keep them engaged.”

By offering free math tutoring sessions to Nigerian women, Onyedibe also hopes to encourage STEM careers in marginalized groups. “Many people I have come across have a phobia for maths. I believe that teaching and explaining math will help encourage them to continue their interest in the field of engineering and realize that subjects, like math, aren’t as hard as they appear,” says Onyedibe.

Through her work in promoting diversity and inclusion within her community, we are pleased to share that Onyedibe has been named a recipient of the George W. Vari Friendship award in the diversity category. 

“Diversity in engineering is important to me because it enhances creativity,” says Onyedibe. “Diversity enhances problem-solving because it allows for different approaches, perspectives, ideologies and skill sets to be employed, while lack of diversity leads to the creation of similar, and often repetitive, designs.”