Janelle Amegatse: Black History Month Campaign Story

CBC continues to celebrate BHM with stories from students.

"My name is Janelle Amegatse, and I’m a junior majoring in chemistry and minoring in Spanish. Though I was born in Tucson, Arizona, and half of my heritage is English, my roots also extend to Ghana, in Western Africa, on my dad’s side. I had the opportunity to visit his hometown in 2020, and it was there that I fell in love with the warmth of the people, the taste of jollof rice, and the bustle of markets thrumming with life, complete with wandering goats and speckled guinea fowl.

Aside from being passionate about travel and my family’s cultural heritage, since coming to the U of A, a Tier 1 research institution, I’ve also acquired a passion for research in the chemical sciences.

I’m currently an undergraduate research assistant in the Gianetti lab, where I’ve sought to meet the challenges of long-duration energy storage. Specifically, I’ve worked on the synthesis and characterization of novel carbenium ions for usage as the redox-active material in symmetrical, non-aqueous redox flow batteries. Following the completion of my undergraduate degree, I currently intend to go to graduate school and thereafter engage in energy storage research at a national laboratory such as NREL or in industry."