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Neuroscientist wants to give back to former Spalding High

Published:Wednesday | December 16, 2020 | 12:10 AMNadine Wilson-Harris/Staff Reporter
Leighton Duncan, Jamaica-born neuroscientist.
Leighton Duncan, Jamaica-born neuroscientist.

Jamaica-born Neuroscientist Leighton Duncan loves spending time inside the laboratory at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine where he currently works, but the reality that there are not too many West Indians there in his field is a real concern.

So far, he has come across one other person from Trinidad and Tobago and gradually, he has come to realise that Caribbean students do not seem to gravitate as much to the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects.

“If you come from an under-represented background, you will have a totally different thinking of who you are in that field, and it makes things really hard not being able to see people who look like you,” he said.

Duncan, 29, wants to do his part to ensure that more persons from the Caribbean become interested in pursuing the sciences. He would like to recruit other scientists and professors from Johns Hopkins and other research institutes to help academic curriculum development and provide mentorship to students in Jamaica. He would also like to do pre-recorded seminars on career development and assist students with their college application process after high school.

Interest in Science

The neuroscientists, whose interest in science was sparked while attending Spalding High School (now renamed Alphansus Davis High), would like to first make his contribution to his alma mater. He had attended grades seven and eight at the Clarendon-based institution, before migrating to the US with his mother and sister in 2004.

“I am trying to start small now, but the next thing on my agenda is to reach out to the universities in the West Indies and to try to set up a collaboration to recruit talented students who are interested in science, mentor them, and have them applied to programmes here at Johns Hopkins, just to improve diversity and inclusion within the university,” he said.

Duncan spends a significant amount of time teaching and mentoring under-represented students in science at Johns Hopkins. These efforts stem from partnership with former mentors during his time at Yale University. Duncan’s wife is also a scientist and she, too, would like to help him in his endeavour to give back to Jamaica.

Duncan had attended the Southern Connecticut University before pursing postgraduate studies at Central Connecticut University. He did research at Yale for three years before going to the research-intensive Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where he has been for the last two years.

The Clarendon native said he would like to help dismantle the structural and geographical barriers that have historically limited access to science for people in the Caribbean. He finds that most migrants from the region are from families where their parents didn’t even attend college. It was his high-school teachers who taught him about college.

“Once I was in college, there is where I started to talk with students who always get called on by the teacher,” he said, noting that he thought of them as his future collaborators.

As a child, Duncan was constantly reminded by his aunt and cousin, who are both teachers, about the importance of education. He thinks that with the right guidance, more students can come to appreciate and fall in love with the sciences, the way he did after being inspired by his chemistry teacher.

“It’s all about the people you are around. I knew science was where I wanted to be, but personally, I wouldn’t have found, like, what I am doing now if I wasn’t around the right people at the right time,” he said.

nadine.wilson@gleanerjm.com