Dr Fridah Mogoi Mokaya

Kenyan scientist Fridah Mogoi Mokaya has become the first black female to attain a PhD in Nuclear Physics from the University of Connecticut, USA.Dr Mokaya earned her PhD after completing her master’s degree in physics at Binghamton University, a move that became a reality when her boyfriend now the husband coaxed her to apply to grad school in the US, a decision that was a huge success.

The move set the pace to her career and academic pathway as she enrolled for the PhD program at UCONN in the fall of 2010. To her surprise she says, she was the only black Physics PhD female student in her department but this did not alter her focus and determination.

A mother since 2012, she had to juggle between being a mum, a wife and a PhD student, a task that she says wouldn’t have been as easy were it not for her supportive husband.

In an interview with the African Warrior Magazine Mokaya recounts her keen interest in sciences and reminisces how she narrowly missed the 70 per cent cut-off mark for sciences and upon intervention by her physics teacher who talked to the deputy principal at her school Pangani Girls High school in Nairobi.

The principal allowed her in the Physics class on condition that she had to perform, and that, she achieved by scoring an ‘A’.She later joined Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology to pursue a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics, graduating with a Second Class Honours, lower division.

Speaking to the African Warrior Magazine Mokaya acknowledges that she knew what she wanted since a tender age, and she promised herself to go to any extent to fulfil her desire.

Dr Fridah advises that we have the potential to be who we want to be in life and that challenges are meant to propel as to the next step in life. Her counsel is that if she would influence more women to pursue Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics, and related subjects, she would be even happier.

 

Photo courtesy of Google

Story by Carolyne Nyokabi

The Article; https://thisisafrica.me/kenyan-mokaya-first-nuclear-physics-phd/