Description
In 2012, Kelsey Leonard became the first Native American woman to earn a science degree from the University of Oxford, with her MSc in Water Science, Policy and Management. In 2016, another first as her portrait–the first of a Native American graduate–was commissioned for an exhibition titled ‘The Full Picture: Oxford in Portraits’ in 2018. The painting was made by Kelsey’s sister Courtney Leonard, also making it the first of Oxford’s official portraits painted by a Native American. The portrait now hangs in the Exams School. Of her experience, Kelsey has said: “One of the greatest challenges was leaving my family and Indigenous community to live and learn at an institution where I was the only Native student. Oftentimes, I was the first Native American many Oxford faculty and peers had ever met.” Dr Kelsey Leonard is now a professor in the Faculty of Environment at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.