As global warming intensifies and climate change takes center stage, more and more companies are realizing the impact of their actions. They are, in fact, taking small yet significant steps to responsibly cope with the environmental impact for the future.
In a league of his own, Dr. Michael L. Curry is committed to reduce the carbon footprint worldwide through his business Eco-Friendly Plastic Materials, LLC. The mission of his business is to provide renewable bio-based products that can be used for industrial commercialization.
Michael Curry found success in his career as a leader and entrepreneur by integrating the core values of transformational leadership. According to him, the most valuable characteristic is a leader’s ability to use their platform to empower others and inspire change.
This Historically Black Colleges or Universities (HBCU) Professor also draws inspiration from many transformational leaders from Black History who built bridges that transcended the boundaries of inequality.
“They did this exceptionally well through their ability to empower and inspire people, creating movements toward a common goal of equality in education, combating poverty, and social justice for African Americans like achieving the American dream: equality and opportunity for all,” he adds.
As a green chemist and material scientist, Michael also built his leadership style on these very principles: empowerment and inspiration. He says, “I aspire to extend my innovations beyond their mere advancement of scientific knowledge and solutions to global issues.”
Taking his cue from George Washington Carver, who extended science beyond its norm by revolutionizing farming for sharecroppers throughout the South, Michael applies these transformational leadership principles to inspire and empower his team.
He especially encourages them to explore the global impact of scientific discoveries and to leverage that impact towards equality and opportunities for others.
Exploring his Scientific Curiosity
From joining the US Navy to earning a PhD, mentoring STEM graduates to starting his business, Dr. Curry’s journey to becoming a professional and entrepreneur has been nothing short of exceptional.
Little did Michael know that growing up as a kid from a small town, he would later use his talents to make a profound impact on the world.
“Remembering the impact that my family had on others within our community through business ownership, I began to wonder if that incompleteness that I felt was actually my calling to become a business owner,” he remarks.
This transformed him into a national scientific figure and an agent of change for underrepresented or underserved students in STEM; truly living the American dream.
In fact, this journey deeply instilled in him the core values of integrity, honor, respect, commitment, and courage. It also gave him the launching pad towards opportunity and a platform for both personal and professional growth.
Defining a New Vision for STEM culture
Michael Curry is a strong propagator of building a diverse STEM culture. He believes that this is a definite path to accelerate new innovations and drive a strong and healthy economy.
As a HBCU Professor and researcher, his vision capitalized his laboratory’s research and innovations. He also aims to increase the number of highly trained minority professionals within STEM and entrepreneurship pipelines.
He says, “As our nation begins to explore ways to increase the production of human capital in STEM and hallmark diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) as a vital part of the STEM ecosystem, it is critical that scientists begin to use their innovations and research platforms to advocate for equality in STEM.”
This is not all. Michael has also encouraged and enabled the movement of inclusivity and diversity extraordinarily. In fact, he has strategically positioned his career as a professor, researcher, and entrepreneur to positively affect STEM DEI.
“I have developed and partnered with academia, non-profits, and the chemical industry to create STEM programs and curricula that educate and promote underrepresented and underserved students at the K-12 and collegiate levels to pursue advanced degrees in STEM,” he shares.
Michael currently serves on local and national committees that address key challenges associated with increasing DEI in STEM and the STEM workforce. He is also involved in scholarship foundations that aim to provide underserved students with the financial means for pursuing advanced degrees in STEM as a part of its mission.
Moving the Needle as an Innovator
As an innovator, Michael Curry uses every opportunity to develop cutting-edge scientific solutions and mentor young bright minds.
He shares, “Some of my most recent committee assignments have been as a member of the Ford Foundation Fellowship Panel and as a committee member of the American Chemical Society Cellulose and Renewable Materials (CELL) newest committee on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Respect, and Belonging (DEIRB).”
To his credit, he also developed national symposia that brings together academia, industry, government, and underrepresented and underserved communities. His intent is to empower and inspire movements that lead to dialogue and actions that build diverse STEM ecosystems.
Along these lines, he is also currently organizing an American Chemical Society Presidential Event Symposium and an Accounts of Chemical Research special journal issue entitled “Research at HBCUs”.
These initiatives’ motives are two-pronged: First, to highlight the amazing research and innovations emanating from HBCU labs and second, to initiate conversations and partnerships that lead to reimagining the engagement of HBCUs and increase their access to adequate funding, resources, and facilities.
In fact, one of his recent projects was a creative outcome of a partnership with AlaCann, a startup medical cannabis company, in which the common goal was to increase the number of underrepresented and underserved students receiving training and conducting research in medicinal chemistry at HBCUs.
The Eco-Friendly Story
Inspired by innovations developed in his lab at Tuskegee University, Dr. Curry thoughtfully curated his research endeavors of more than a decade into a successful business, Eco-friendly Plastic Materials.
The research team at Tuskegee discovered technology that made it possible to fabricate cellulose-based plastics. Further, this helped him to make eco-friendly and biodegradable plastics using common industrial resins.
In regard to the vision of the company, Michael assertively mentions “The vision of our company is to partner with the bio-resin industry using this technology to bring sustainable innovations to the manufacturing industry, and to normalize the chemical industry seeking to partner and commercialize technology being developed in HBCU labs.”
Moreover, through his company, he continues to engage students from all disciplines (business, education, science) in activities that will provide them with problem-solving skills from a global perspective.
Advice for Future Black Leaders
Michael Curry believes that he has been the most fortunate to have surrounded himself and his business with entities and individuals that have helped him to have a successful company and career.
Drawing from his experience, his advice to aspiring and emerging black leaders would be to widely invest in yourselves: Broaden the training that you are receiving, even if it doesn’t seem to fit into your career plans at that moment.
He feels that often, “We become extremely tunnel focused as we begin to build our careers and forget to broaden our impact it could have in other areas.”
One of the most formidable grand challenges that hinder the advancement of translational research is insufficient communication among scientists and non-scientific stakeholders. To solve this, he suggests “increasing your ability to communicate across boundaries is key to becoming a transformational leader and entrepreneur.” This will further “accelerate the impact of your research, innovations and leadership in other related areas,” he adds.
Combating Change as a Professor and Leader
As a seasoned entrepreneur and educator in STEM Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Michael faced many challenges, but he continues to remain optimistic about the future in this space.
Michael feels there is a critical need to expand innovation and entrepreneurship to maintain the nation’s leadership in science and technology discovery and to ensure its national security.
“We must create an approach to STEM education that invests in new research infrastructures to encourage invention, innovation, and entrepreneurship at all levels of the educational process for all,” he shares.
Additionally, he believes these must be leaders that are equipped with the core skills to solve humanity’s grand challenges.
When quizzed about the things he would have done differently if he were to start again, he candidly says, “My highly focused training in research methodologies, analytical skills, and communication with other scientists did not afford me the opportunity to fully develop my communication skills with the general public or entrepreneurship skills needed to commercialize scientific innovations.”
He feels that the ability to communicate with a common man, clearly and tactfully, is critical for informing and persuading them to try your products.
“If I had to change anything about my journey it would be the addition of training in communication skills toward informing the general public about the scientific benefits of my innovations. Further, I would have pursued entrepreneurship training early in my career which would have enabled me to identify and fill market gaps,” he adds.
Setting Science-Based Targets
As an entrepreneur, Michael learnt to embrace change, leverage his networks to provide valuable solutions and persist through rough terrains. But his biggest takeaway was increasing his self-awareness — understanding his strengths and shortcomings to lead and inspire others.
He acknowledges that the world is looking for sustainable climate solutions and he believes that his company, Eco-friendly Plastic Materials (EPM), is at the forefront of leading this revolution.
As EPM continues to build relationships with plastic manufacturers and create plastic solutions that are more environmentally friendly and sustainable, Michael is excited about the opportunities that these partnerships will create.
He is especially thrilled about identifying more potential HBCU innovations and technologies that could lead to other minority-developed products and startup companies.
“I am most excited about the impact we will have on inspiring more underrepresented and underserved students to become STEM innovators,” he remarks.
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