What becomes possible when people have the opportunity to bring who they are into their learning, apply what they know, and learn alongside others?

In this episode of The People Teaching People Podcast, I sit down with Dr. D’Andre Wilson-Ihejirika, an innovator, educator, engineer, and social entrepreneur whose work brings together learning, equity, entrepreneurship, and community impact.

D’Andre shares the journey that took her from studying and working in engineering to researching engineering education, leading community and workforce initiatives, and creating hands-on learning opportunities through BrainSTEM Alliance. She reflects on the power of experiential and project-based learning, the importance of giving people agency, and why learning with and from others can make trying something new feel more approachable.

We also explore the inspiration behind Luminate Games and its first game, ChemiCutes, which turns the elements of the periodic table into collectible characters and chemistry concepts into an interactive adventure. D’Andre shares how her children helped spark the idea and why play can create meaningful opportunities for young people to explore, experiment, and learn.

This conversation is a reminder that learning is not something we ever have to outgrow. It happens as we create, collaborate, lead, play, and make room for other people to discover what they are capable of. Whether we see ourselves as teachers or not, we are always learning from the people around us and they are learning from us too.

Listen in as we talk about:

01:00 D’Andre’s story

04:34 Building a multifaceted career

08:47 Turning experience into research

11:22 Bringing identity into learning

15:38 Turning knowledge into confidence

20:29 Why learning together helps

27:34 The magic of BrainSTEM Alliance

32:23 The learning power of play

40:38 Collaborating and innovating in Calgary

44:16 The art of great teaching

49:31 Creating opportunities for others

53:12 Always continuing to learn

Connect with D’Andre and learn more about the amazing things she is doing:

• LinkedIn:
  • Dr. D’Andre Wilson-Ihejirika
  • LearningCITY Collective
  • BrainSTEM Alliance
  • Luminate Games
• Websites:
  • LearningCITY Collective
  • BrainSTEM Alliance
  • Luminate Games
• Instagram:
  • BrainSTEM Alliance: @brainstemalliance
  • LearningCITY Collective: @learningcitycollective
• Facebook:
  • BrainSTEM Alliance: @BrainStemAlliance

Connect with Tiana:

• Website: https://tianafech.com
• LinkedIn: Tiana Fech
• Instagram: @tianafech
• Facebook: @tianafech
• Book: Online Course Creation 101: A step-by-step guide to creating your first online course
• NEW Workbook: Your Expertise Ready to Download – Turn what you know into an impactful downloadable resource

BUILDING A MULTIFACETED CAREERD’Andre shares how a lifelong love of science and math led her from the Bahamas to Canada to study chemical engineering, beginning a career journey that would eventually expand into education, entrepreneurship, and community leadership. While studying engineering, she became involved in student clubs and STEM outreach, sparking an interest in designing programs that help young people explore science and technology. When she later moved to Fort McMurray and discovered there were few opportunities to continue that work, she created BrainSTEM Alliance and spent the next decade leading the organization alongside her engineering career. That experience opened the door to a PhD in engineering education and roles across higher education, nonprofits, workforce development, and adult learning. Although D’Andre’s path has taken her through different places, sectors, and roles, she sees the different parts as closely connected. What began as a way to continue her passion for STEM outreach alongside her engineering career gradually helped shape the work she does today.

TURNING EXPERIENCE INTO RESEARCHD’Andre shares how her own journey through engineering became the inspiration for her PhD in engineering education. Her experiences with student clubs, STEM outreach, and leadership led her to wonder how learning outside the classroom might influence the career pathways engineering graduates pursue. Her research explored the connection between undergraduate learning experiences, professional choices, and identity, with a particular focus on the experiences of Black engineering graduates and other underrepresented groups. As she led BrainSTEM Alliance and moved from technical engineering into higher education, D’Andre became increasingly curious about these questions and passionate about exploring them more deeply. With the support of her PhD supervisor who gave her the freedom to shape her research, the different pieces came together. For D’Andre, pursuing a PhD was an opportunity to better understand the experiences that had shaped her own learning and career while exploring whether others had been shaped by similar experiences.

BRINGING IDENTITY INTO LEARNINGD’Andre shares how her research highlighted the influence of experiential and project-based learning on the skills engineering graduates develop and the career paths they pursue. In her study of Black engineering graduates, she found that many moved into “boundary-spanning” roles, such as project management or business analysis, that bring together technical knowledge and people-focused skills. Through her interviews, she also discovered that classroom and capstone projects gave students opportunities to bring their cultural identities into their engineering work. One graduate, for example, chose to focus a civil engineering project on bridge building in the Caribbean, creating a meaningful connection between their technical learning and cultural background. D’Andre saw how experiences like this could strengthen students’ sense of belonging in engineering while helping them develop a broader range of skills. It is something she now considers when designing programs, recognizing how important it is to give people agency in their project-based learning. When people can bring more of who they are into their work, it can change both how they experience the learning and where they imagine it might lead.

TURNING KNOWLEDGE INTO CONFIDENCE“When people are able to bring aspects of themselves into the work, it inspires learning and helps it resonate.”

Across her work in post-secondary education, nonprofits, entrepreneurship, and community initiatives, D’Andre has seen how much more meaningful learning becomes when people can bring their identities, creativity, perspectives, and previous experiences into what they are doing. Through BrainSTEM Alliance and her own teaching, she creates opportunities for people to apply technical knowledge through projects and design challenges while having the freedom to shape the work in ways that matter to them. D’Andre’s own experience starting BrainSTEM Alliance also taught her skills she had never formally studied, including many of the principles of social entrepreneurship she now teaches. For her, learning through doing helps theoretical ideas resonate in a way that classroom instruction or a test alone cannot. Actually doing the work not only helps the learning sink in, but also gives people the confidence to know they can use what they have learned.

WHY LEARNING TOGETHER HELPSAlthough D’Andre genuinely loves learning and finds trying new things exciting, she recognizes that it can also feel uncomfortable and frustrating when understanding does not come easily. She reflects on subjects such as history, politics, and governance that did not interest her when she was younger but have become increasingly important in her work. Now that she can see how this knowledge applies to leading nonprofits and navigating different levels of government, she feels more invested in learning it. D’Andre also believes that learning with and from other people can make the discomfort more manageable. Learning alongside someone who is also figuring things out can make us feel less alone, while working with someone who has different knowledge and strengths creates opportunities to complement one another. For D’Andre, giving yourself grace, understanding why the learning matters, and finding people to learn alongside can make something unfamiliar feel far more approachable.

THE MAGIC OF BRAINSTEM ALLIANCED’Andre describes BrainSTEM Alliance as a passion project that began with her desire to give back through STEM outreach while working as an engineer in Fort McMurray. When she discovered there were no local organizations offering the kind of programming she wanted to support, she connected with Girls Inc. of Northern Alberta and invited other women in engineering to join her. Today, BrainSTEM Alliance brings STEM professionals and community partners together to co-design hands-on learning experiences for young people. The volunteers, known as STEM Ambassadors, have opportunities to renew their own enthusiasm for STEM while developing skills in educational program design and delivery. Participants learn through the workshops, community partners learn through the collaborative design process, and every program takes on a different flavour as each ambassador brings their own interests and perspectives. From career panels and chemistry experiments to inviting high school girls to write letters to their younger selves, BrainSTEM Alliance creates opportunities for everyone involved to learn while doing and to have a lot of fun along the way.

THE LEARNING POWER OF PLAYD’Andre shares how her children’s love of science, coding, video games, and family board games inspired her newest venture, Luminate Games. Each of her three children contributed an idea, from chemistry and rocks and minerals to space, giving D’Andre an opportunity to build on the educational programming developed through BrainSTEM Alliance and transform it into interactive, immersive games. The first game, ChemiCutes, turns the elements of the periodic table into collectible creatures with personalities and abilities based on their chemical properties. Players collect elements, combine them into compounds, and complete quests based on chemical reactions, learning chemistry as they move through the game. A team of university students has helped design characters for nearly the entire periodic table, and D’Andre is now working toward a more interactive version in which players explore an island, gather ChemiCutes, and bring them back to a lab to complete reactions. By bringing science and play together, D’Andre hopes to create games children genuinely want to play while helping them discover how much fun learning can be.

COLLABORATING AND INNOVATING IN CALGARYD’Andre shares how leading TalentED YYC for Calgary Economic Development showed her what can happen when people from different post-secondary institutions and businesses are brought together around a shared goal. Although some believed it would be nearly impossible to align so many partners around work-integrated learning, the pilot demonstrated that meaningful collaboration was possible. D’Andre acknowledges that silos and other challenges still exist across Calgary’s learning ecosystem, but she also sees a genuine willingness among people and organizations to work together, innovate, and try new things. She believes Calgary is large enough to have helpful structures in place while remaining small and agile enough to explore new ideas. That combination of collaboration and entrepreneurial spirit is what excites her about the city’s future and why she is involved with the LearningCITY Collective. For D’Andre, creating opportunities for people to come together is an important part of imagining what learning in Calgary could become.

THE ART OF GREAT TEACHINGD’Andre names her childhood art teacher, Sue Bennett-Williams, as someone who had a lasting influence on her learning. From Grade 1 through Grade 12, D’Andre attended Sue’s after-school art program in the Bahamas, where each lesson introduced students to an artist and invited them to experiment with that artist’s style while bringing their own interests and perspectives into the work. They explored painting, charcoal, papier-mâché, clay, and many other forms of art, learning about art history along the way without always realizing how much they were absorbing. Years later, D’Andre could visit galleries and better understand the styles, eras, and choices behind the art because of what Sue had taught her. Sue also encouraged her science- and math-loving students to recognize how art develops the creativity they would use in other areas, something D’Andre came to appreciate as an engineer. She continues to admire how Sue made learning engaging and fun, allowed students to bring themselves into it, and taught them far more than they realized at the time.

CREATING OPPORTUNITIES FOR OTHERSWhen D’Andre reflects on what she is most proud of, she returns to BrainSTEM Alliance and the opportunities it has created for other people. The organization was one of the first places where she learned how to lead and support people in their development, beginning with hiring someone part-time to work alongside her. Since then, BrainSTEM Alliance has given many people their first job in Canada, their first job as a student, or their first volunteer experience. D’Andre values being able to ask people what they want to learn and what kinds of projects interest them, then finding ways for them to build those skills through work ranging from data analysis and dashboards to graphic design and game development for ChemiCutes. Leading BrainSTEM Alliance has also shaped how she supports people across the other teams she leads. She is proud not only of building the organization, but of creating a place where people can contribute meaningful work, recognize the skills they are developing, and continue to grow.

ALWAYS CONTINUING TO LEARND’Andre encourages people to keep learning, even when stepping into something unfamiliar feels uncomfortable. She suggests finding someone you can learn alongside, learn from, or complement with your own knowledge and strengths. She also reminds us that teaching and learning are always connected. Whether someone is a teacher by profession or teaches through leadership, supervision, volunteering, or another part of their life, they are also learning. Teaching requires us to understand the people in front of us, how they want to learn, what they want to learn, and how those needs connect with what we hope to share. D’Andre brings the conversation back to a message woven throughout her journey: find people to learn with, remain open to what others can teach you, and always continue to learn.