Born in Chicago and raised by a single mom, Dasia remembers when they relocated to a small town in Iowa, where they were in the minority as a Black student. Dasia, though always intellectually curious, never explicitly fancied themself an inventor but always recognized the innovative spirit in everyone.
For that first science fair project, Dasia was focused on creating something in the medical field and landed on low-cost sutures that switch color if an infection has occurred, an affordable innovation on electronic "smart" sutures, harnessing the pH-detecting power of beets. Though this was their first project, Dasia spent every Friday after school in the lab for the next six months. The end result was seriously impressive. They received national attention for the invention, appearing on the Ellen DeGeneres Show and in numerous news articles.
Since then, Dasia has won an array of awards, launched an inclusion-focused medical device company, VariegateHealth, and earned a BS in Global Health Studies from the University of Iowa. Dasia does speaking engagements as often as possible, mentors, and loves visiting elementary schools to inspire other kids. She says, "I do what I do for Dasias like me that are in the younger generation and looking for inspiration from someone. I hold a variety of identities and I'm very proud of who I am. And because I needed someone like that when I was growing up, I want to be that someone for all of the little kids growing up."
We had the chance to interview Dasia a few years ago when she was just starting on her journey.
Where did your path to becoming an inventor begin?
Officially, I began inventing my junior year of high school, when I raised my hand in science class and said, "I want to do the science fair." But honestly, I think innovation goes back to your childhood, like creating a new game to play on the playground. Innovation goes deeper than just something big that changes the world.
But junior year is when people started calling me an inventor. And I put it that way because it took me a good long while to actually call myself an inventor. I thought I was doing the science fair just because I knew I could do it. By no means did I plan on inventing a medical device initially.
What made you choose sutures for your project?
I told my teacher that I wanted to do something within the medical space. At the time, I was very interested in medicine. I had asked for a suture kit for Christmas my sophomore year, thinking I needed to practice in preparation for medical school.
And before that, when I was younger and I got my first taste of Grey's Anatomy, I remember slicing open my teddy bear and sewing it back up with a needle and thread. Those were like stepping stones to my junior year of high school.
And that's when I found an article about these high-tech smart stitches, and I was like, oh, this is so cool. But my equity brain was like, ding ding ding, this is not equitable. And so I decided to work on that.
I've always been a hands-on learner. And I figured if I was going to learn the medical space, I should build in the space. That was the inventor seed within me. I'm pretty sure I still have that bear, actually, now that I think about it.
How did you figure out that beets were key to your innovation?
I had no science fair research experience prior to entering into this science fair realm. As someone who didn't know what the limits were, this was really important because I learned everything from scratch. Everything I know now is something that I've had to learn within the process.
It took a few days to gather my thoughts, but then I landed on the idea to make stitches that change color. That was the goal. I told my teacher my idea, and she suggested I research something called natural indicators. So I did that and learned that some plants have a substance that can be extracted and used to reveal the pH of another substance because they change color.
I went down the research rabbit hole and started collecting information. Then I started putting two and two together. I researched the pH of a wound, and used the scientific method to find a plant that would indicate when that pH changed — in other words, something that would show when the wound becomes infected. Turns out, beets met all of my criteria. I've rocked with them ever since.
Speaking of changing color, you've recently founded a company that embodies that same principle. Tell us about it.
Yes, I recently founded a company called VariegateHealth, which means to change color, which I think is super cool. And that stems directly from our main products, which are the color-changing stitches, and what everyone kind of knows me for at this point.
Another facet of the definition of variegate is to diversify. I chose that name, in particular, because of my equity work. It was really important to me, being a Black queer founder, that my company be a diverse space. We're still in the early phases, but we're super excited to get things rolling over the next couple of years and take the space by storm.
What drives you to stay focused on equity?
It's very personal for me. I grew up in a single-parent household. My mother had me at 18 years old, so in a sense, she and I grew up together. Everything she was learning, I was learning. And honestly, I was learning about all the inequities that exist. I was probably one of only five black kids in my school in Indiana. My hair was different. The way I talk is different. My experiences are different.
In junior high in Iowa, I joined the Black History Game Show, which is a statewide competition centered on Black History Month, at a time when there were a lot of high profile killings of black men, like Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, and Mike Brown. We made a Black Lives Matter sign and put it in the busiest hallway of the entire school. But within passing time, which is about four minutes, it disappeared. The principal had torn it down.
So that experience kind of pushed me more toward K-12 equity. There have been a lot of personal experiences that I've had, and as I get older, they may come less, but they come harder.
What role has mentorship played in your life?
I cannot fully explain to you how important mentors are. I attribute a lot of my success to the people I've met and the things that they've taught me. Because we all have to learn from somebody. I'm working on being something that I've never seen before. And I'm learning from all of these different people, just absorbing all of these lessons from the stories that they're telling me.
Mentors can be anybody, but educators are definitely at the top of my list.
How do you handle the inevitable frustration that comes with invention?
I definitely have down days, and I am very pro-crying. That's the best way I can put it. If I need to cry, I'm going to cry. When all else fails, I call my mom, and she reminds me who I am. She always told me you can do anything you put your mind to. And I feel like I'm living proof of that.
What advice do you have for kids aspiring to be like you?
My advice, as simple as it sounds, is to just go for it. I started at ground zero. I had zero baseline knowledge about the scientific process and research, let alone innovation and how that works. I think that instills something in kids. They see that I've done all those things, that I've been on Ellen, but I'm still out here, volunteering in the community and eating ice cream at the Dairy Queen.