Taking objects apart and reassembling them was a fairly common activity for Amber Johnson Avery when she was a child. Curious and possessing a talent for problem solving, Avery would disassemble the family VCR or other gadgets around the house to see how they worked before figuring out a way to put the pieces back together before she got in trouble. She even became her own mechanic, fixing the chain on her bicycle without external assistance.
“I grew up around a lot of women—like my grandma, my mom, my aunts—and they did everything in the house,” Avery told the Mississippi Free Press. “Even though they had husbands and I had uncles, they still cut grass; they took out the trash; they took their cars to get serviced. They did things that traditionally women weren’t expected to do.”
The Jackson, Mississippi, native was immersed in many programs and initiatives that existed in Hinds County at the time. She played tennis at Parham Bridges Park, played basketball at the YMCA and hung out at the MetroCenter mall. She attended Callaway High School before transferring to Lanier High School, where she played basketball as a point guard.
“I played basketball, the point guard, which I know was essentially the second coach on the court, so (I had) to know where everybody needed to be, how to get them the ball, when we needed to score, when we needed to play defense,” Avery said. “I think all of that went into (developing) the mind of a scientist.”
As her time at Lanier was winding down, Avery was having difficulty figuring out what she wanted to do after high school. Her mom suggested she major in a degree that could make her money, offering computer science as an avenue she could pursue, a path that her cousin, Gegina “G.G.” Johnson, took when she majored in computer science at Jackson State University.
Once she researched the subject, Avery realized that she had always been into technical stuff—from programming her calculator to play games to downloading music and burning songs onto CDs, along with other projects that involved tinkering with electronics.
“ If you look at computer science or engineering, it’s problem solving. That’s really all it is. It seems really, really difficult and just so far-fetched, but it’s essentially just problem solving, and you are using or building technology to solve those problems,” she explained.
‘I Went Headfirst’
After graduating from Lanier in 2006, Avery enrolled in Tougaloo College in Jackson as a computer science major before transferring to Lemoyne-Owen College and finishing her bachelor’s degree there. During her last year at Lemoyne-Owen, her cousin connected her with Dr. Charles Bland at Mississippi Valley State University, which led to her completing a research internship involving bioinformatics.
“I went headfirst into it, and (Bland) became one of my greatest mentors I ever had. Under his guidance, he told me about the (Louis Stokes Mississippi Alliance for Minority Participation) program at Jackson State University, which will pay for your master’s degree program,” she said. “So I ended up applying for that program, and that sets you up to get a Ph.D.”
Jackson State didn’t have a doctoral program in computer science, however. One day, while Avery was on campus, a person signed her up for a free campus trip to Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. She visited the university, met department heads and enrolled into the school.
Along the way, though, she faced discouragement. At one point, someone asked her what she wanted to study, and she answered that she was entering computer science.
“Black people don’t go into the computer science department,” the person said.
“I’m competitive,” Avery responded in challenge. “I’m an athlete, so basically you just told me I can’t do it.”
The doctoral student even had an advisor who, when she started the program, said, “Maybe this isn’t for you.”
Defying expectations, Dr. Amber Johnson Avery became the first Black woman to earn a doctorate in computer science at Purdue University.
“It was stressful. It was a struggle. It was really tough for me. But, I stayed the course,” she said. “I knew that’s where God wanted me to be, stay faithful and essentially create a community there.”
‘There’s No Roadmap’
Living in a more northern state like Indiana was an adjustment for the Mississippi native. Avery had to adapt to a climate where the sun doesn’t shine for weeks in winter. She also didn’t know anyone, and the Black population on campus was less than 5% compared to the majority-Black Jackson.
“I think having that upbringing from Jackson, that hospitality, that love, that sense of community really helped me,” Avery said. “I went on to create other programs within our department to get that sense of community. I thought it was just for me, but it was actually helping the other people as well.”
She reactivated the Graduate Student Board and became the president of it, gathering a team and creating programs. One was a peer-mentoring program that paired first-year students with second years and third-year students with fourth years. Another held research pitch competitions to help with public speaking, while the board created a space where students could anonymously submit comments or meet to receive support in confidence.
“There were other people that felt the way that I did,” Avery said. “Looking back, I think that everything that I experienced from my childhood on to getting my Ph.D. was all preparing me for what I was gonna face.”
After graduating, she landed a position as a software engineer at Northrop Grumman through the Future Technical Leaders program. During her year in the role, she felt a lack of passion for the work she was doing. Eventually, she quit to pursue her own projects and ultimately came to work with Dr. Nashlie Sephus at the Bean Path, becoming a manager partner of the Jackson Tech District. For three years, she focused on efforts to revitalize Jackson, which reflects the type of work she wants to continue doing.
To that end, Avery founded and became CEO of NextGenEdu, Inc., to build Scholarly, an AI-driven career discovery platform made to personalize guidance for students. The new startup just recently received a $304,993 Small Business Innovation Research Phase I grant through the U.S. National Science Foundation.
“I like making an impact. Yes, I wanna make money, but also make an impact. So with NextGen, the whole idea is to help individuals find their career paths,” the tech expert said.
“There’s no roadmap for this. … I figure this is a problem, the way we’re introduced to the world of work and how we’re taught to navigate it. A lot of us are not (taught), and I think in some cases, it’s a privilege when you do have that information,” Avery added. “That’s why I wanna build this platform with NextGen.”
‘Know Their Stories’
Avery plans to use the grant funds for research and development so that she can put the science behind what she’s creating. She’ll be conducting design and participatory studies with local high-school and college students in Jackson, and psychologists and career counselors will be helping her build the platform out.
”What we don’t wanna do is build something that we think is cool, that we think is gonna be great with no input from the people that it actually is gonna impact,” she explained.
Avery said this process feels similar to her doctoral program. In this first phase, she and her collaborators will have to produce research that demonstrates that the product is feasible and marketable, a process that will take close to a year. She is hoping to get school districts on board to help the platform succeed.
“While we’re building and doing all this research, we also need to do customer discovery to make sure this is something people would pay for, something schools will pay for,” Avery said. “There’s a little bit of pressure there. I wanna come back for that $2-million grant.”
Through her time with the Bean Path, Avery has watched students fall in love with STEM subjects and eventually pursue careers in those fields. She envisions NextGenEdu similarly encouraging and assisting students, with its reach being even larger since the platform is digital and is accessible to people across the world.
“ I wanna work with people around the community. It’s not just for youth. It’s for like career changers, people who may have been incarcerated or were out of work for some time,” Avery said. “You need to know what’s in your community, what’s in your city, jobs that are available, how they got there.”
“We need to know their stories.”
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