What is Merci Ngozi Best currently working on?
Postdoctoral Fellow, Boston University
After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan on September 1, 2025, I started a second postdoctoral associate position at Boston University.
Founder of Building B.R.A.I.N. Wealth
As a postdoctoral research fellow, I was awarded the Black Men's Brain Health Emerging Scholars Program Award. For my community outreach project, I led a 17-person team to create Building B.R.A.I.N. (Brotherhood, Resilience, And, Insight through, Neuroscience) Wealth, a free event to inspire proactive health management among males in Detroit, Michigan.
This work is done in collaboration with an Assistant Professor in Nursing at the University of Michigan, Dr. Florence Johnson (pictured on the right)
Founder of STEAMKITX, STEM & Arts Kits
As an undergraduate student, I minored in Community Studies because of my participation in the Sharpe Community Engagement Scholars Program. I volunteered in a second-grade math classroom as a tutor. In parallel, I researched the ways teachers contributed to the "leaky science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM) pipeline" for girls.
I later researched the "leaky STEM pipeline" for Black children. To combat against summer learning loss and lack of role models as contributions to "leaky STEM pipeline" for both girls and Black children I developed STEAMTRIX, a summer intervention program designed to introduce students to STEM by incorporating the visual and performing arts.
To increase the scalability of my efforts, in 2020 as a participant in the City of Charlottesville Go-Start Up program I founded STEAMKITX, an education company that sells STEM and art activities that empower students to explore science and related careers.
