Aspiring Environmental Researcher is CBB’s 2020 SPISE Scholar

Seventeen-year-old Dominique Bryan is the Central Bank of Barbados’ 2020 SPISE (Students Programme for Innovation in Science and Engineering) Scholar. The programme, which exposes secondary-school aged students interested in careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to university level training in the area, will take place online this year due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Speaking with the Bank before beginning the intensive five-week programme, the sixth-form Harrison College student revealed that he has been passionate about science for as long as he could remember, saying it was science camp and books about animals that sharpened his interest in the area. It’s no surprise then that he is currently studying Chemistry, Biology, and Environmental Science.

When he learned about SPISE, he was keen to apply, and very happy to learn he had been accepted. During the programme, he will be exposed to a range of subjects, including programming, robotics, electronics, and entrepreneurship, but he believes that the Math and Physics component will be particularly challenging. Still he welcomes the challenge those two subjects could pose and is ready to tackle them and any others head on. He is also particularly eager to learn more about time management during in the programme.

Dominique admits he had been looking forward to the traditional in person format at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, where he would have benefitted from hands on learning, but he has embraced the new format as he understands the need for everyone to be safe.

This will also not be his first experience with online learning, as his school also turned to it during the pandemic. To remain focused during that period, he tried to allocate five hours per day to studying, and he confesses that he enjoyed the experience: “It was better…I finished all of my syllabuses.”

Looking to the future, Dominique, who also enjoys cycling, being involved in the Duke of Edinburgh Award (he received a Bronze award for his programme), and was recently elected president of Harrison College’s Environmental Club, hopes to pursue a career in research specialising in natural ecosystems and regenerative agriculture. While he has not chosen his ideal college yet, he says the University of Plymouth piqued his interest because of what he heard about its Environmental Science programme.

For the moment though, he is looking forward to his time at SPISE, and expressed his gratitude to the Central Bank of Barbados for affording him the opportunity to participate. “I am very grateful. SPISE is going to benefit my future in many ways.”

SPISE is an initiative of the Caribbean Science Foundation which seeks to increase the number of students in the region who pursue degrees in Science and Engineering. Ultimately, the initiative seeks to diversify the economies within the Caribbean by introducing students to finding new pathways for economic growth. The programme runs from July 5 to August 9, 2020.