In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian for AIP, interviews Tyrone Porter, Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. Porter recounts his childhood in Detroit, his recent move to Texas from Boston, and the opportunities afforded to him as he builds a new laboratory. He describes the importance of science fiction in fueling his early interests in science, he describes his undergraduate education at Prairie View A&M University, and he explains the opportunities afforded him to pursue his academic interests at a Historically Black University. Porter discusses his interests in engineering and computer science and how he became fascinated with the nascent field of biomedical engineering. He explains his decision to pursue a PhD at the University of Washington, and describes some of his impressions moving to a nearly all-white environment there. Porter discusses his research under the direction of Larry Crum in acoustics and ultrasound technology, and he explains some of the tensions he felt in balancing the focus of his work on basic science research vs. therapeutically-oriented results. He describes his postdoctoral research integrating membrane disruptive polymers into liposomes with Christy Holland at the University of Cincinnati. Porter explains his developing focus in nanomedicine, and the interest his research sparked in several major pharmaceutical companies. He describes his decision to join the faculty at Boston University, and he weighs the different kinds of impact in fostering diversity that he can have working at a major research university vs. working at a smaller HBCU. Porter notes the many colleagues at BU who have supported his efforts to improve diversity and inclusivity in STEM, and he describes the successes he achieved in setting up a lab and how the field of biomedical engineering had matured over this time. He contextualizes his recent leadership efforts within the Black Lives Matter movement from an academic context, and he describes how these events came to a head in the summer of 2020 and why he has been more committed than ever to ensuring greater and better diversity initiatives in STEM. Porter describes his ongoing work in therapeutic ultrasound research, and at the end of the interview, he describes himself as an activist scholar for whom accomplishments in the lab and in advancing racial justice and sensitivity are two aspects of a single career goal.