Cynthia is an innovative scientist, an advocate for black girls and women, and champion for high level STEM learning to be a reality for all children. In keeping with this work Cynthia is the founder of Black Girls Do STEM an organization offering exploration of STEM career pathways through hands-on engaging curriculum in the areas of Science Technology, Engineering and Mathematics to middle and high school black girls to expose them to career pathways and empowering them to become STEM professionals. In two years Black Girls Do STEM has impacted over 60 girls locally and worked across 7 school districts, 13 community partners and secured three grant funders. She is a Senior Research and Development Chemist in the manufacturing industry where she specializes in coating technologies for electrical and electronic markets. She has been able to innovate new material solutions and that grossed over $1M in sales in the 12 month post full commercialization schedule. She works on developing new technologies but also market strategy around commercial implementation.  Cynthia looks for more ways in which she can act as an conduit exposing young black girls to STEM industries and a diversity, equity and inclusion voice within the STEM workforce space to create welcoming policies, practices and cultures for Black people and  women to thrive. She sits on professional boards such as the American Chemical Society-St. Louis Chapter where she leads initiatives to increase minority participation in the local section. She also sits on the steering and diversity and Inclusion committee for this organization and is a working group member for STEMSTL a STEM ecosystem facilitating collaboration between STEM program providers and focusing on supporting equitable and quality STEM programs.

Cynthia has been a featured speaker for numerous platforms and spoken on  an array of topics including, Building Cultures of Equity and Inclusion, The leaky Pipeline: A discussion about Black women and girls in STEM, Values First Leadership, Understanding the state of Black girls in K-12 STEM education just to name a few. She recently was the Keynote Speaker for Colorado College FemSTEM Symposium in Colorado Springs, Co where she discussed the impact of Black Girls Do STEM and its benefits to intersectional feminism. Cynthia is able to draw from her own experiences of being a Black girl often having to leave her own community to participate in high level learning for STEM and  often being the singular black woman and person of color in many spaces throughout her educational and professional pursuits. Her ideas around best practices to cultivate a STEM mindset and community for Black girls is deeply personal and fueled by her desire to make the road less challenging for the next generation of Black girls.