Jesus DPhil student Lessah Mandoloma has won the Outstanding ED&I Champion – Student category at the 2024 MPLS Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (ED&I) Awards.

The awards honour staff and students within the Mathematics, Physical and Life Sciences (MPLS) Division who have made outstanding contributions to advancing ED&I, and celebrate individuals and teams whose efforts are creating more inclusive and supportive environments. The ED&I Awards provide a valuable opportunity to highlight the exceptional work being done across MPLS—work that might otherwise go unrecognised.

Lessah Mandoloma, a DPhil student at Jesus College Oxford

Lessah has been the driving force behind an impressive range of innovative activities to enhance inclusion in the Department of Biology and beyond. Notably, she helped organise an online event for graduate students in the department to talk about current global events, and their impact on student wellbeing. She has also helped create opportunities for African students to feel included at Oxford, including a freshers’ orientation for new students from across different departments. In addition, Lessah has also engaged with divisional ED&I work through the ED&I Steering Group and Fellows.

In a recent interview for the Biology website, she explained why she was keen to get involved with ED&I at Oxford;

“My previous education has been in Africa (Malawi and Kenya), with different yet familiar cultures. Coming to Oxford felt very different and I didn’t realise how much of a challenge it was until much later. What I thought was going to be the most significant achievement of my life started to not feel like it should. I was fortunate to be surrounded by a very strong support system (my family, ICCS lab members and supervisors) but I realised that I was lucky and that may not be the case for every student. They may have similar experiences to mine but without that same support system and that would take a toll on one’s wellbeing. This realisation made me get involved in activities aimed at supporting each other and led to creating a space where people could share knowledge and experiences for informed planning and decision-making. I must say that these experiences also helped me in my role as the African universities ambassador when I joined the department, where my main role was to foster relationships between African universities and the biology department. Through this role, I realised there was much to contribute to MPLS’s EDI aspirations.”

To read Lessah’s full interview, click here.

ABOUT LESSAH MANDOLOMA

Lessah’s research interests lie in the field of Biodiversity Conservation and Agriculture, particularly to understand the linkages and trade-offs for conservation and agriculture in the context of developing countries. In her DPhil/PhD research she is using interdisciplinary approaches to address the the question of how food systems and production can be changed to meet the needs of the growing human population, and how biodiversity goals can be achieved without compromising peoples’ food security.

She is a 2014 AWARD Fellow for African women in science, funded by the Malawi government, the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) and the University of Oxford’s Zoology Department.