Amid growing concern over the widespread use of skin-lightening products in Nigeria, a leading researcher is turning academic insight into real-world action, calling for a cultural shift in how beauty and identity are defined.Olabanke Oyinkansola Goriola knows what it means to leave home in pursuit of answers and to come back with the responsibility to act on them. A PhD Candidate in Performance Studies at Northwestern University in the United States, she is one of a rare breed: a Nigerian scholar who has dedicated her entire academic career to understanding why so many of her people are changing their skin, and what it will take to change that.
Her academic journey spans three continents and four completed degrees, with a fifth currently underway. Beginning with a First-Class Honours degree in Theatre Arts from the University of Ibadan, where she was named Best Graduating Student and Student of the Year in the Department of Theatre Arts and was awarded the prestigious 2016 National Council for Arts and Culture Prize, she went on to earn three master’s degrees. The first was completed through the European Union Erasmus Mundus Scholarship, one of the world’s most competitive international postgraduate awards, which took her across four European universities. A second Master’s was completed at the University of Edinburgh on the prestigious Kirby Laing Foundation Scholarship. Her third master’s degree in performance studies is from Northwestern University in the United States, where she is now completing her doctoral degree. At Northwestern, she has been inducted into the Edward Alexander Bouchet Honor Society, one of the most distinguished graduate honours in American academia and has received more than 20 competitive grants and fellowships.After years of studying the issue abroad, she says the urgency of the crisis demanded direct intervention within the communities most affected.
