An astrophysicist, cosmologist, inventor, science communicator and TV personality, Hakeem Oluseyi has cleared considerable obstacles to achieve his goals. In his 2021 memoir, Quantum Life: My Unlikely Journey from the Street to the Stars, New Orleans-born Oluseyi recounts how he navigated poverty, violence and homeless in his youth, moving from poor neighbourhood to poor neighbourhood, carrying a gun to protect himself. A self-described “super nerd” who won state science fairs with computer programmes inspired by Einstein’s theory of relativity, Oluseyi would go on to earn a PhD in physics from Stanford University and contribute to research in areas such as astrophysical plasmas and ion propulsion and leading an education programme at NASA.
Understanding where people have come from and what they’re passionate about is crucial if we want to effectively teach STEM subjects in the future, says Oluseyi. “One reason why people claim that I’m a good mentor is because I deal with the human component,” he says. “For some students, you have to spend as much time convincing them that they can do it as you do teaching them how to do it. Sometimes you need to make it relevant to them – sometimes you need to make it fun.”
One of the key shifts that STEM teachers need to make is starting from a position that acknowledges that STEM isn’t necessarily the number one choice for many kids, says Oluseyi. “In America, for a quarter of a century, we’ve been pumping STEM like there’s no tomorrow,” he says. “Yet, only 18% of our undergraduates graduate with STEM degrees – 18%! The vast majority of those are going to be in engineering, right? Something like physics is probably less than 1%.”
Teaching STEM in smaller, bite-sized chunks is shown to improve learning, Oluseyi says, and can help to reframe unpopular subjects such as maths, which children are often discouraged by early on, and can carry a negative feeling towards throughout high school and beyond.
“How we do mathematics education is not the right way,” says Oluseyi. “When people go to college, they ask themselves three questions: What am I good at and enjoy? What can I make money doing? What has the least amount of maths?”
Oluseyi has developed a “divergent framing of mathematics” that he says is achieving outstanding results in his students. “My son, for example, completed algebra 1 at seven, algebra 2 and trigonometry at nine. He started calculus at 10.”
A love of learning
Oluseyi loved learning from an early age, inspired by a mother who was an avid reader and passed on the joy of reading to him. “I’m like, ‘Oh man, I want to read everything. This is dope,’” Oluseyi recalls.
By the time he was 10 years old, Oluseyi had read through a set of encyclopaedias and discovered Einstein’s theories. Meanwhile, he was solving chess problems, cheating at cards like a pro and learning how to talk his way out of tense situations in tough neighbourhoods where geeky bookworms weren’t cool. “It’s funny, because at home I was a super nerd, but among the physicists [now], I’m cool,” says Oluseyi.
Everybody always teases me whenever I go to somebody’s hood about how square I am. But among the physicists, I’m Snoop Dogg.”
In 1986, Oluseyi was accepted to Tougaloo College to do a degree in physics. He felt so intimidated by simple but unfamiliar things, such as taking notes in class, that he dropped out of college after two years and become a janitor. His love of learning and desire to ‘be something’ pushed Oluseyi to return to college, changing his name from James Edward Plummer to Hakeem (meaning “wisdom” in Arabic) Muata (“he seeks the truth”) Oluseyi (“God has done this”).
Oluseyi completed his PhD in physics at Stanford University in the late 1990s and launched a career that has included securing 11 patents and publishing more than 100 scientific papers on everything from computer chip manufacturing to investigating structures in the Sun. From 2016 to 2019, Oluseyi was the Space Science Education Lead in the Space Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington DC, which involved managing a US$45 million budget and guiding strategic investments in STEM activation.
Oluseyi currently holds a number of positions, including visiting professor at George Mason University, a television presenter, and president of the National Society of Black Physicists, a non-profit organisation that aims to promote Black physicists and physics students within the scientific community and to the public.
The reclusive communicator
As Oluseyi’s science career developed, he was increasingly asked to present the information in public forums. Even though he describes himself as a recluse, he was getting positive feedback on his public speaking. “I’m making these presentations to the students and everybody’s like, ‘Oh my God, you’re so good at this,’” he says.
People start writing to me, ‘You probably don’t remember me, but you came to my school and now I’m about to start college and major in this particular science. It was all because of you.’”
The buzz that came from inspiring people and getting them interested in science also led to Oluseyi’s television career. After four years on a science advisory panel at the Discovery channel, his communications skills were clear, and he became involved in an increasing number of series at Discovery and National Geographic. Titles included
Outrageous Acts of Science, How the Universe Works, Curiosity, Space’s Deepest Secrets and Strip the Cosmos. Since September 2020, Oluseyi has also appeared as a judge on Netflix’s Baking Impossible, an American cooking competition themed around baking and engineering.
With such a wide range of experience, Oluseyi has very specific advice for scientists who want to have a bigger presence in the communications sphere. “Don’t think like a scientist,” he says. “If you’re thinking about it like a scientist, you’re going to put yourself in a box. If you put a flea in a jar and then you take the lid off, it still won’t jump beyond that height – there are these constraints on our minds and how we operate. Think entrepreneurially and partner with people who are also thinking entrepreneurially.”
Opportunities might not initially look like much, or in your particular area of expertise, but they might be part of a bigger picture, says Oluseyi. “You need to be thinking about developing customer base, about developing relationships. That’s really what my success at the business of science communication has been.”
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Story by Kylie Ahern