Growing up in Tarkwa, a small town in western Ghana, Jessica Oparebea was an academic standout. She graduated junior high with over 15 certificates for various academic activities: quizzes, science competitions, and enrichment programs.  

“I wasn’t just eager to win; I was driven by a hunger to learn, to challenge myself, and to explore new ideas,” she said.  But her passion for science came from personal experience. Jessica was diagnosed with sickle cell disease at the age of four and spent much of her childhood in hospital wards—not just as a patient but as a curious observer.

“While others saw IV drips and charts, I saw questions waiting to be answered. I poured over my medical reports and asked my doctors probing questions, driven by a deep desire to understand the diagnoses and the rationale behind every treatment plan,” she said.

Jessica is now pursuing a future in neuroscience and optics, and is researching brain-machine interfaces and non-invasive neurotechnology that could one day restore lost functions like movement, sight, and hearing.

“This goal is deeply personal for me. Growing up, I witnessed the effects of neurological injury. A close family member lost mobility due to a stroke, and I remember feeling helpless, unable to understand what was happening or how to help,” she said.

“Later, as I studied biomedical engineering, I realized science and technology’s potential to give people their lives back. The brain-body interface fascinates me not only scientifically, but also because it represents hope—a way to reconnect people with the world when those connections are lost.”

Last year, Jessica attended a special computational neuroscience workshop that accelerated and fueled her mission to change lives through science. TReND-CaMinA (Computational Neuroscience and Machine Learning in Africa) is a computational neuroscience and machine learning program offered by TREND in Africa. This year, the course will be held at the University of Zambia in Lusaka, Zambia in collaboration with the Allen Institute.

“We joined the TReND-CaMinA team to introduce scientists in Africa to the open data resources of the Allen Institute. During the workshop, we taught students to use the Allen Institute’s rich, publicly available datasets to address questions about the brain and its function,” said Saskia de Vries, Ph.D., associate director of data and outreach at the Allen Institute. “Fully understanding these questions requires collaboration across multiple disciplines and types of expertise. We are excited to be able to work with the next generation of scientists in Africa to further build this community.”

The program offers cutting-edge instruction and hands-on training to aspiring scientists using Allen Institute data and resources.

“It was a transformative experience. Under the guidance of experts like Saskia de Vries and Michael Buice from the Allen Institute, I gained hands-on experience in neurobiology and brain data analysis,” she said. “A defining moment was working on my first neural data analysis project using the Allen Visual Coding 2P Dataset, which felt like uncovering hidden messages in brain activity.”

The experience solidified Jessica’s interest in computational neuroscience and boosted her confidence to pursue her dreams to research technologies that help society. It underscored the importance of mentorship and community in science, and that was the reason she planned her own webinar running April 28 to May 2.

Advancing Computational Neuroscience Through Collaborative Learning will introduce students and researchers to key concepts in working memory, computational neuroscience, and brain data analysis.

“I initiated this event to provide high-quality training in computational neuroscience and foster a collaborative learning environment.”

Jessica notes that many students struggle to translate theoretical knowledge into real-world innovations, and this webinar seeks to address these gaps by turning learning into action with real-world payoff.

Her hope is to inspire her community to strive for similar goals in service of society—using the power of science to heal, not harm.