Donna Rose Addis is a New Zealand psychology academic of Samoan descent. She is currently a professor at the University of Toronto. She hadn't considered going to university, as none of her immediate family had gone. But she had an amazing teacher in the fifth form, a young Samoan teacher named Anastasia Fidow, who taught her history and English for a few years. She wanted to follow in her footsteps and become a history teacher. In 1995, she was named as New Zealand's Top All-Round Scholar of Pacific Island descent on the basis of her bursary exams. This gave her the confidence and courage to go to university. At university she struggled to fit in. This led to her becoming interested in identity, and how it relates to memory and the stories that people tell themselves. She is now a leading researcher in the role of the hippocampus in memory and the imagination. --- Source: https://e-tangata.co.nz/identity/donna-rose-addis-i-didnt-look-like-who-i-was-on-the-inside/