Faculty Featurette
Christian Nwachioma

As you probably know, my non-research-based background was in Physics, a mix of applied and theoretical experiences. So, when it was time for me to do a Ph.D., I preferred not to jettison both the applied and theoretical aspects of my early experience. Besides, since my Physics bachelor’s degree background consisted of electronics and classical and quantum mechanics, and having picked up a few programming skills along the way, it was apparent that a Ph.D. in Robotics and Mechatronic systems would allow me to continue to develop all those skill sets. Besides, since Robotics and Mechatronics are multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary, it offers a broad range of learning experiences. Therefore, I liked the idea of being able to refocus my teaching and research interests at different points in my career when necessary. That way, I could effectively move with research and technological trends and keep my passion high for many years.

Although I experienced some challenges when I arrived, I did not think of the challenges as being correlated with color or race. But my thought may be incorrect as I am not very conversant with past experiences of persons of color in the research science arena.

Teaching is an art consisting of a two-way communication flow. When I teach, I gaze around the class, not just to see that I have my student’s undivided attention, but also to hear the unspoken cues of confusion or absence of it, emanating from their countenances. This premise shapes the next art of the teacher. With COVID-19 and the virtual learning technology that ensued, this aspect of teaching evaporated despite the tech. Hence, both teachers and students tended to under-perform, especially in engineering practices. Another aspect of learning that became lost was the socialization of students with one another. In fact, with the learning tech following COVID-19, I often feel that students pass through the university, and the university doesn’t pass through them. University education should not just be about gulping and regurgitating information, as today, the OpenAI ChatGPT does that much better than any human. Instead, the socialization component when we meet in classes, labs, sports fields, excursions, and gyms, to name but a few, should not be discarded and forgotten to sustain the sense of community and cooperative development. 

I want to think that I engaged in a reasonable amount of recreation and relaxation activities before I came to the US. Now, new in Denver, I wouldn’t go recreating alone. And most of my life so far has been that way having studied on 3 continents away from my family home. Besides, Colorado doesn't seem to be a friendly place for recreation and relaxation. At the end of the Fall 2023 semester, I had thought I should walk into a night-time happy hour by the weekend and see what it's like to be there. Then there was a hate attack on a protected class somewhere in Lakewood, the city I lived in. Taking a quick mental sample of similar attacks in the US and discussing it with someone, I was advised against going to such public places. Specifically, to answer your question, when I get a break, I’d like to hang out by the beach with a loved one and other friends having their loved ones too. I had an experience like this during my Ph.D. vacations when I’d travel to Acapulco, Cancun, Oaxaca, and the Teotihuacan pyramids.
 

I took interest in programming software when I served in a Youth Corps (NYSC) at the IT unit of the Metallurgical Training Institute, Onitsha, Nigeria. During that time, I was a teaching assistant to a Computer Science professor. Specifically, I spent most of my time writing PHP (Hypertext preprocessor) scripts for dynamic web development with MySQL and Oracle database accesses. Later, I received an offer to join a new firm whose mission was to be like the Amazon or Alibaba of West Africa. While I mostly worked on validating the software that my team developed, i.e., detecting and fixing bugs in the code, I also wrote PHP scripts, especially during the earlier phase of the development cycle. During that time, I also picked up a few JavaScript experiences, including using the JQUERY framework. Unfortunately, I had to leave in 2014 to join a nationwide event that offered postgraduate scholarships to scholars based on performances in a marathon of tests at the National Mathematical Centre in Abuja. Some takeaways from the web-based software development experience are – it demanded lots of time as I also taught at Don Bosco Secondary School in the same period. Besides, it set high demands and unreasonable deadlines within short periods. Unfortunately, the business couldn't succeed due to limited funds and poor management, as I learned months into my Ph.D. program abroad. I wish I had been more persuasive when I approached the upper management to discuss the demands of unreasonable targets from employees within short periods.
 

Learning has always been something I never want to put a stop to. So, an opportunity to make my livelihood by learning sounds good to me. And having students to whom to transfer knowledge is a constant motivating factor to remain studious. For the second part of your question, I’d say, when the subject of race comes up in a professional arena, frankly, the emotions that could be associated with it are alien to me. This standpoint is not wishing away the experiences or feelings of non-white folks, the classification to which I belong. Color classification of humans is new to me, by the way. Ok, so, as a foreigner who has just arrived from a place where colorism or even racism is not a thing, I am, for now, hopefully it stays that way, largely unperturbed by a race-based misdemeanor. And as per the preponderance of white males in Engineering, I would say that I do not have sufficient information to comment on the disparity. For example, I do not know the population demographics of Colorado or the US in general. But I suspect that there are more white people than black people in the US. However, given the historical antecedents, as I read in articles, of black people, Natives, and other non-white classifications in the US, I think we can and should be intentional in encouraging more black people to get involved in Science, Engineering, and Education, in general, because diversity in these areas would present a more holistic perspective to societal challenges. In doing so, I am not suggesting that any group should be given undue advantages over others. The field of play should only be level for everyone, color notwithstanding.