About the CEO & Founder

Dr. Yvonne A. Akpalu, is the CEO & Founder of Why Science, a New Haven based education technology company. Before founding Why Science in 2009, Dr. Akpalu served as a member of the Chemistry & Polymer Science faculty at

Dr. Yvonne A. Akpalu, CEO & Founder, Why Science

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Her scientific and leadership abilities have been recognized by multiple research, education and entrepreneurship awards. While a Guest researcher at the National Institute of Standards of Technology, she received a Paul Schmidt Award in Applied Small-Angle Scattering (1999) for her innovative  X-ray scattering experiments and computation modeling to understand the underlying mechanisms for initiating crystallization in polymers. In 2005, she received a National Nanotechnology Initiative Award in Small-Angle X-ray and Neutron scattering recognizing her research in the area of structure-property relations of crystalline polymer systems.

In 2007, she received a Martin Luther King Faculty/Staff Award for the impact of her Why Plastics? activities on undergraduate students and the minority community at Renesselaer. Why Plastics? is an award-winning science education program Dr. Akpalu created to increase and sustain student engagement in science. How Why Plastics? increases engagement in science is featured in Ease The Quiet Storm, a documentary produced with a grant Dr. Akpalu received from the National Science Foundation.

In 2009, Why Science’s potential for rapid business growth and STEM job creation was recognized with a Small Business Development Center Achiever Award. In 2010 and 2011, Why Science was named a Connecticut TECH Company to Watch.

Dr. Akpalu has offered education/training programs to Grades 3 – 9 students from over 30 schools in the Albany New School district, and to High school students at Wilbur Cross and Metropolitan Business Academy in New Haven Connecticut. She has trained over 100 K-12 teachers from school districts across the state of CT.  Some of the teachers she has trained are affiliated with Education Connection, a regional education service center serving 33+ school districts in Litchfield County, and the Southern Connecticut State University/Yale Center for Research on Interfaces Structures and Phenomena. Akpalu also offers professional development workshops for teachers at the annual Connecticut Science Teachers Association conference held annually in Hartford, Connecticut.

In her service to the scientific profession Dr. Akpalu is committed to channeling our youth into the physical sciences. She has served as an Associate for the Society Committee on Education for the American Chemical Society (ACS). She has also served as past president of the Women’s Chemist Committee and as the National Chemistry Week Coordinator for the Eastern New York Section ACS. She is a member of the Rotary Club of New Haven and currently participates in education and outreach activities for various local science-based groups and the Rotary Club of New Haven.

She holds a Ph. D. in Polymer Science & Engineering from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a B. A. in Chemistry (High Honors) and Physics from Smith College.

Our Team

Our team of artists, educators, business professionals, engineers and scientists, led by Dr. Yvonne Akpalu (CEO & Founder) can help you increase teacher confidence and student achievement in your community. From hands-on & minds-on workshops, to school system consulting services that assesses a school’s learning environment and provides guidance on designing high achieving dynamic STEM teaching & learning experiences, our team will work closely with you to achieve!