Arséma Angela Adeoluwayemi Hamera Thomas (born June 19, 1994) is an American actress. She plays young Lady Agatha Danbury in the Netflix period drama series Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (2023).
Early life and education
Thomas was born in Atlanta, Georgia to a Nigerian father and a Ethiopian mother, both diplomats, and moved to Kampala, Uganda at two weeks old. She lived in multiple countries growing up, including Tanzania, Benin, Togo and Kenya, as well as the Comoros and India. She speaks English, French, Spanish, Yoruba, Amharic, and American Sign Language. Given the nature of her parents’ work, Thomas grew up reading and discussing essential works by Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka and listening to Fela Kuti, influencing her political and social activism today.
Thomas completed high school at Linden Hall where she was on the tennis team, soccer team, drama club, debate team, student council, and National Honor Society. She initially planned to pursue a "safe career" and go into global public health, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Biophysics from Carnegie Mellon University in 2016 and then a Master’s of Public Health (MPH) (studying Health Policy with a concentration in Global Health) from Yale University School of Public Health (YSPH) in 2018 with the goal of promoting health equity. While attending Carnegie Mellon University, Thomas was a member of the Beta Nu chapter of Delta Gamma Fraternity.
Thomas worked in a maternal and child mobile health clinic in Northern Kenya and the Kakumah Refugee Camp on the Kenya-Sudan border. She gave a TEDxYale talk titled “Charity, one hell of a drug” addressing the issues of donor aid dependency during the second year of her MPH. Thomas is the founder of the women-empowerment health app Enki (stylised as enki) which helped supply female condoms to combat HIV/AIDS. Thomas is also cofounder of a startup called Mosaic, which is an online platform for refugees to sell goods around the world and in turn provide for themselves and their families. Thomas also worked as an associate of the United Nations Population Fund and was a fellow of the Global Health Justice Partnership at Yale University and a board member of the Adebisi Babatunde Thomas Entrepreneurship Institute (ABTEI) in Nairobi, Kenya. Thomas also volunteered with Habitat for Humanity and International Refugee and Immigration Services (IRIS).
After losing her father to Lou Gehrig's disease, Thomas decided to pursue acting. She took short courses at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, the Cours Florent in Paris, and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London. She began attending the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), but put her studies on pause when she was cast in Queen Charlotte.
