A PhD may have opened doors, but the lessons that shaped my research-and now guide how I help organisations, governments and leaders understand people-came from a woman who never finished primary school.

LAST week, I graduated with a Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology from The University of the West Indies, St Augustine Campus. Yet the first scholar in my life never finished primary school.

Her name was Judith Caines-Henry. She worked as a domestic worker at Texaco while my father was a laboratory technician at the Pointe-à-Pierre refinery. I grew up in Trinidad's oil belt, spending my childhood between the teak fields of Plaisance Park and the close-knit community of Brighton Village, La Brea.