Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Dr. Joyce Boye is no stranger to gender-based barriers – she has faced them throughout her career as an engineer and researcher. But they have never stopped her from striving to build the kind of work environment that fuels her – and her colleagues – to do their best work.
Her own path
Joyce grew up in Ghana with a public servant father and a hard-working entrepreneurial mother, both of whom instilled her with the discipline to work hard and a commitment to public service. She was encouraged from a young age to choose medicine as a career and, as traditionally expected, find a husband and settle down. But she dreamed of being an engineer, and at the time, engineering was not a field traditionally inclusive of women.
“I wanted to follow my ambition to become a woman engineer based on the principles of hard work that my parents taught me,” she says. Joyce persuaded her parents, but even after securing their support, she realized it would be a challenging path. She quickly discovered that she was the only female enrolled in her Chemical Engineering cohort. This was a reality that would cause “four years of dealing with constant consternation about how I could possibly be succeeding,” she says.
And she did succeed, obtaining her undergraduate degree from the University of Science and Technology in Ghana. Joyce continued to challenge herself by moving to Canada in 1990 to pursue graduate studies in food science at McGill University in Montreal - an area of study she had increasingly come to understand was important.
“Find out what you are really passionate about and go after it,” she says. “When I was growing up, I learned that 40,000 children a day were dying of hunger. I thought that was unacceptable and that if I could do anything to decrease the numbers I would. That is why I focused on food and agriculture in my graduate studies.”
A new home
Arriving in Canada, Joyce thought that perhaps her life in engineering as a woman and as a person of colour would be less challenging. Unfortunately the timing of her arrival was shrouded by an event that continues to echo in Canadian history.
“I learned that just a few months earlier, in December 1989, 14 women in the mechanical engineering program at Montreal’s École Polytechnique had been gunned down in their classroom. It was quite traumatic,” she says.
Joyce, like many others, would not let this deter her. “I wrestled on and graduated with a PhD from McGill and was pleased to follow my passion and join Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.”
She started working at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) in 1995, including as a Post-Doctoral Fellow, and was subsequently hired in 1997 where she continued to apply her expertise as a woman engineer and food scientist in the positions of research scientist and eventually management for over 25 years, focusing on value-added food processing, food safety and food quality.
A leader and mentor
As an organizational leader at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Joyce is striving to strike that perfect work-life balance while working with staff to build a more inclusive workplace.
Throughout her career, she has understood the importance of hard work, building good merit and following one’s passion, but as a woman and person of colour she acknowledges that “sometimes the undervaluing of one’s contributions, can be emotionally and mentally exhausting; this is on top of the fact that work conditions are always changing, workloads are heavier, and women are trying to balance home and family life as well.”
“I believe that each person has something special to offer,” she says. “If we can create a healthy workplace for all, it will create enormous benefit for everyone and greater success and fulfillment in the work we do.”
Despite her numerous accolades and accomplishments, including being appointed the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UN FAO) Special Ambassador for North America for the 2016 International Year of Pulses, Dr. Boye is not resting on her laurels. Instead, she continues to relish her work following her passion to be a public servant who loves to work with the people around her to create a better society as she serves as a role-model to countless young women in science and engineering.
Read Joyce’s tips for overcoming barriers and creating a more inclusive workplace.
Tips
Dr. Boye is a strong advocate for a more collaborative and inclusive workplace. These are just a few things she has learned – and unlearned – along the way:
Acknowledge the mental barriers
“As a woman research scientist I’ve always felt that women hold themselves to very high standards in their careers and workplaces,” she says. On top of these standards, “women and individuals who identify as Indigenous, Visible Minorities, and with Disabilities are often seen as needing to do more to prove themselves as capable.”
Barriers to entering the workforce are not just merit-based, but can be mental as well. Dr. Boye suggests these barriers need to be acknowledged in order to create equal opportunity.
Seeking collaboration not competition
“One of the ways we can achieve objectives is not only by pushing the frontier of science - but by creating an ideal working environment for the science to be done,” Joyce says. “Collaboration is key; you need to find the right collaborators because it makes the work easier and more productive,”
The best collaborators? Those that share a like-minded passion for benefitting society and addressing complex problems through science.
Finding (and keeping!) mentors that believe in your potential
“I try to learn from a lot of people – and not just those who share their knowledge but those who actively create opportunities for others. Those who encourage me to believe that I can do it and can help myself to grow and also help other women to grow and identify avenues for themselves,” she says.
For those who do not have a mentor, Dr. Boye suggests doing “a study of people, to make a note of what they are doing right, and aim to emulate that throughout your career and interpersonal relationships.”
Opening up to help open minds
“Being vulnerable is a muscle I’m still learning to stretch,” she says. “Being transparent takes courage, but women who have made progress in their careers need to lend their voices - it’s not easy - but we need to find the courage to be the advocates.”
Get more Agri-info
- Want more stories like this? Explore what else Agri-info has to offer.
- Interested in reporting on this story? Contact AAFC Media Relations at aafc.mediarelations-relationsmedias.aac@agr.gc.ca to arrange an interview with one of our experts.