By Anna Azvolinsky | The Scientist

Not long after starting a job as the head of a chemistry lab at a high school in Benin City, Nigeria, Charles Rotimi told his parents that he wanted to leave his native country to pursue a graduate degree abroad. He applied to a petrochemical engineering school in the UK and to the University of Mississippi for a health care administration degree, at the advice of a Nigerian friend working there. Rotimi chose the US school because of the cheaper tuition. His mother, who ran her own business, offered Rotimi $10,000, enough for a year in the States. “That was a huge amount of money for my family and a validation that she had confidence and trust in my succeeding,” says Rotimi, now director of the Center for Research on Genomics and Global Health at the US National Institutes of Health.