Martina G. Efeyini

I would say my motivation is that I'm self-motivated and self-driven. But also, I would say my faith that I have in God. There's a clip I saw on social media with Snoop Dogg where he said, 'First of all, I like to thank myself, I like myself, I like to thank myself for being myself,' but he also said, 'And I'd like to thank God, and I'd like to thank my family and my friends, and whoever helped me along the way.' I agree with that in some rendition. I spoke and I, God, and my family, and everybody else that supports me, like mentors. One of my mentors, Nalidi, she's a really good one. One of my peer mentors, Jelana, and also one of my mentors from when I worked at UMB, Dr. Bailey. And also Carletta Barry. All of them helped me in different ways in my life.

The biggest career advice to me is be yourself and be authentic. One of my mentors always says, and I feel like it just will stick with me for life, the right people will find you, and also, you don't ever have to dim your light. I had a sabbatical that was almost 2 years, and it was challenging because what I like to do is very niche, and there's not a lot of people that do what I do - a scientist, communicator, and also a creative person, the trifecta. Sometimes when you look at different advice about interviews and applying for jobs, I would try it, and none of that stuff didn't work for me. It didn't work for me not because I'm not a strong candidate, or not that I didn't have skill sets or talents or abilities, it was because I was following other people's practices, and that was inauthentic to me. I'm a big person of being authentic. Be authentic, be yourself. I would always tell my youngest self and people that are younger, be yourself, be authentic, have fun, enjoy. I believe you spend a lot of your life working, you should enjoy what you do. You should do what you're passionate about. Being authentic is about finding the type of person that you are, and knowing the person that you are. And kind of like what I had said about, I just enjoy just being, that time of just being you can actually get to know yourself more.

I would say, a woman, whether it's a woman or a person, a woman of color, sometimes you might be one of few, if you're a woman of color, you're probably one of the few, if not the only. But don't let that deter you. And if you are a woman, there might be other women there, but just know that she can do it. I'm a big person of empowerment and women empowerment. We can do a lot of things, whatever, despite what society says, and any things that don't sound right about women. We could do a lot of things.

I would say a lack of diversity, but also a lack of accessibility and inclusion. And I wouldn't say it's just my field in general, I think that's in a lot of fields, where people are just trying to figure out, okay, how can we have more diversity, whether it's race, ethnicity, color, creed, neurodivergence, disability, all these different things. I think as a society, different places could be better. I wouldn't say it's just for my field, I would say it's across - I can't speak for other countries because I'm not non-American, but I would say this is across the U.S., the issue, not just in the field.

I would say stability and security. The value of being valued. And then also, being authentic. It's very important. And then being creative. To sum it up, I would say it's like ikigai, which is - I don't know if I'm pronouncing it right, but it's a Japanese way of life where it's saying everyone is called to do something in life, so kind of like you want to do something that brings you joy, that you can earn money on, but then you also have something that brings impact to society. So it's like a Venn diagram, and I'm a strong believer of that, because that also goes back to being authentic, and also being aligned, which is my own values.