Category: Black History Month

Featuring Dr Kelechi Njoku, Irene Nambuya and Emmanuel Okwelogu. Representation in cancer research is essential for advancing progress and ensuring that discoveries benefit all communities. This Black History Month, we celebrate Black leaders at the Manchester Cancer Research Centre, highlighting their proudest moments, lessons learned, and hopes for the future.

Growing up in the Bahamas, living in the United States, and now calling the UK home, my identity as a Black woman has been shaped by the places I’ve inhabited. Each country has shown me different ways of understanding race, gender, and what it means to belong. What hasn’t changed is the resilience I’ve needed to navigate systems that weren’t built with people like me in mind. Black History Month’s 2025 theme, Standing Firm in Power and Pride, speaks to something I know well: flourishing as a Black woman in higher education means carrying forward histories of struggle while celebrating the joy that comes from perseverance.

100 Black Women Professors Now (BWPN) is a 12-month programme which aims to propel equity of opportunity for Black women academics, researchers and PhD students and to deliver a step change in progress for the HE sector by working with individuals throughout the academic pipeline as well as institutions, managers and leaders. These are reflections about the programme from 2024 participants.