Jonathan Mboyo Esole is a professor of mathematics at Northeastern University. He has expanded our STEM program by teaching our students via Skype. We are so happy to have him as a member of our team and as an integral part of Malaika girls’ education. He was recently featured by Foundation Wiener Anspach and commented,
It was such a pleasure and an honored to be featured on the annual report of the Fondation Wiener Anspach (ULB-Cambridge-Oxford)
. Thank you Francesca Spinelli for your kindness and your patience throughout this process.
Wiener-Anspach is the very foundation that supported my studies at Cambridge University in what was a transformative year of my life, so I have a special love for the foundation. In this interview, I talk about my memories of Brussels and Cambridge, growing up as a special-needs child while adoring my superman elder brother Esole Yuna, I talk about the Next Einstein Forum and the push for science in Africa, I explain my love for the beauty of mathematics, and the constant struggle to stand for human rights in a complicated country like the Congo. I talk about my work to empower women in science (Malaika and the L’Oreal UNESCO Women in Science, I love you!). In the interview, I also have a shout-out to my dear young female collaborators Monica Jinwoo Kang and Sabrina Pastersky who just graduated Ph.D. at Harvard University less than two weeks ago. I also want to dedicate this interview to all our students at Malaika, to our new friends at Lycée Liziba and al the young girls of the Congo who wants to be scientists, to our team of Semaine de la Science et des Technologies en DRC, and to my new mentee Joséphine Ndeze from Goma. Joséphine just won Miss Geek Africa 2019 by building an app that supports women healthcare. She made all of Congo so proud! Now we want to make sure she is on her way to be a successful scientist/technologist with a brain and a conscience.