- Alumnae/i
In his Laudato Si encyclical, published on May 24, 2015, Pope Francis stated, “Science and religion, with their distinctive approaches to understanding reality, can enter into an intense dialogue fruitful for both.”
Leticia Sefia ’21 embodies Pope Francis’s excitement about the immense possibilities that continue to reveal themselves as individuals embrace scientific and technological advances while maintaining a moral compass.
Sefia is a senior Cognitive Neuroscience and Evolutionary Psychology A.B. Candidate and a Classical Civilizations Secondary candidate at Harvard University. She was also the recent recipient of the John Harvard Scholarship, which placed her in the top 5% of her class for the previous academic year based on her cumulative grade point average.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had the preconception that science and religion are two distinct practices,” shared Sefia. “I took many science courses at Oak Knoll. You would learn about the tenets of science, but there was still that implicit or sometimes explicit notion that religion and science can be intertwined.”
Sefia joined Oak Knoll in grade 4, along with her sister, Paula Sefia ’22, in grade 3. “I found it to be a very transformative experience,” she related. “Just being in a very Catholic-based community, but also having all these different opportunities for me, my sister, and occasionally my mom, to showcase our talents and skills throughout the years, grow in different activities, and become involved in many things.”
Throughout her nine years, Oak Knoll provided Sefia with a platform to nurture and showcase various talents and interests. She founded the Lower School newspaper and was the first elected student council president. She also published two children’s stories.
In Upper School, she founded the school’s Chess Club in grade 7. In grade 8, she achieved first place in her division in the Catholic Math League National Competition. She went on in grade 9 to reach fourth place nationally and second in her division.
She took advantage of the robust athletics program and excelled in fencing. She showcased her artistic skills through Chimes, Ensemble, Concert Choir, and Chamber Orchestra. During her sophomore year, the Ensemble was awarded the Silver Level in Prague’s international competition, Young Bohemia Multinational Choral Festival. All along, Sefia excelled in Oak Knoll’s rich academic offerings.
She was inducted into the Oak Knoll Chapter of Cum Laude Society and received the all-school Bridget Gibbons Award in her Junior Year. She was recognized as an AP Scholar with Distinction and named in the College Board National African American Recognition Program in her senior year based on her PSAT scores and Oak Knoll GPA.
During the annual Arts Recognition Ceremony in her senior year, she received the Leadership Award, which recognizes students who have guided their organizations with vision and purpose. That year, the National Junior Classical League also inducted her into the Latin Honor Society, and she received Oak Knoll’s Latin Scholar Award.
Sefia was also inducted into the Ron Brown Scholar Program as a Ron Brown Captain.
All the while, she was involved in extracurriculars such as piano, french horn, and violin lessons, the New Jersey Honors Choir, and served as a counselor and tutor for her family’s test preparation and college counseling consultancy, Sefia Tutors.
While at Oak Knoll, Sefia was particularly fond of the Latin Program and credits her Latin Teacher of seven years, Rebecca Mull, with introducing her to the classics, Ancient Rome, and a language that had an outsized influence on medicine and science throughout the Millennia.
“Ms. Mull was so influential in how I process the world,” she related. “I even took a college semester abroad in Rome to study ancient Roman history, specifically because of the way that she structured the Latin course. She included Roman medicine, knowing my interest in the field. That influenced what I’m doing now.”
As a testament to her interest in Latin, Sefia took the National Latin Exam in eighth grade and received maxima cum laude in eighth and ninth grade, cum laude in tenth grade, magna cum laude in eleventh grade, and summa cum laude in twelfth grade.
Now a senior at Harvard, Sefia is among many young scientists who see no contradiction between living a life of faith and delving deeply into the universe, the natural world, and the mysteries of the mind. She interacts with many at Harvard’s Catholic Center, where they engage in intellectual discussions on Totus Tuesdays. These are the center’s weekly discussions on Catholic life, followed by Adoration.
“Just having these conversations with peers and exploring aspects of psychology, biology, chemistry, physics, and neuroscience is invigorating,” Sefia explained. “There are intricate and detailed phenomena that no random action could have constructed. There has to be a supernatural force behind such a perfect system.”
Sefia wholeheartedly believes there is a deliberate nature and being who intricately created these patterns and phenomena. “The world itself has so many moving parts and so many chaotic elements, but the fact that all these different elements ended up working out in such a balanced way, it had to be deliberate,” she explained.
Sefia is also invigorated by her involvement in her local parish — where she sings in the Harvard student’s 5 p.m. Mass choir — and her participation in the Harvard Nigerian Students Association, which connects her to her roots as a second-generation immigrant.
“I’ve experienced a profound sense of community and bonding,” Sefia explained. “Being around fellow Nigerians and having these same references, despite being from different sides of the country or world, has been incredible.”
Completing what she refers to as an “intersectional” academic track officially titled Cognitive Neuroscience and Evolutionary Psychology and specifically conceptualized for pre-med students, her current objective is to leverage a variety of methods to analyze physical, emotional, and mental states of the developing mind and eventually apply that knowledge to pediatric psychiatry, as she has a passion for working with children.
Sefia has also been an Undergraduate Research Assistant in the Nelson Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital since 2022, where she is learning firsthand how children process the world from a neurological perspective. She has published work in the Harvard Undergraduate Health Policy Review and is a member of Harvard Psychology’s Undergraduate Planning Committee. She is writing an honors thesis on the interconnected effects of poverty and maternal stress on children’s cognitive development.
Furthering her pre-med qualifications, Sefia served as the mentorship chair on the executive board for the Harvard Undergraduate Black Pre-Medical Society, where she represented the partnership between the organization and the Harvard Medical School chapter of the Student National Medical Association.
Although Sefia’s family has been devout Catholics for generations, she credits Oak Knoll with bolstering her faith. “My faith ended up being strengthened through Oak Knoll, learning about Jesus and the Bible, and having a structured theology class,” she related.
That strengthened faith, leading to the fascinating and complex scientific endeavors she now pursues, has been extremely helpful. She feels confident there can be a healthy dialogue between religion and science.
“The conversations I’ve had at Oak Knoll and beyond have been constructive, realizing many scientific theories were established by Catholics and the Jesuits, like the Big Bang Theory or Mendelian Genetics. Those were born in the context of Catholic teachings and inherently Catholic principles, but they have had immense scientific impact.”
As Pope Francis went on to say in his encyclical, “If an artist cannot be stopped from using his or her creativity, neither should those who possess particular gifts for the advancement of science and technology be prevented from using their God-given talents for the service of others.”
Oak Knoll salutes Sefia, who continues to use her God-given talents to enrich our understanding of neuroscience, psychology, biology, and any other scientific pursuit she follows to make a difference in the world.
- Alumnae/i Spotlight