According to CBS News, Wilson learned about the invasive species in class and wanted to help her community.

“I mixed water, dish soap, and apple cider vinegar,” she said.

Wilson made the TikTok-instructed concoction and began using it outside her home in New Jersey when a neighbor saw her and called the authorities.

“There’s a little Black woman walking and spraying stuff on the sidewalks and trees. I don’t know what the hell she’s doing. Scares me, though,” the neighbor told a 911 operator.

Wilson’s mother, Monique Joseph, said the neighbor was racially profiling her daughter.

“Those exact words in another town, another state, I could be grieving,” Joseph said.

Wilson’s story fell into the hands of Ijeoma Opara, a Yale School of Public Health assistant professor. After reading about the incident, Opara decided to take the young entomologist under her wing.

“Oh yeah, Bobbi belongs here. Bobbi is Yale,” Opara said.

Opara not only invited Wilson to campus, but she also introduced her to Black scientists.

“A core of my research focuses on empowering Black girls against gendered racism, so when I heard about the story of Bobbi, it was personal to me, and I wanted to do everything in my power to make sure that that bad memory was replaced with a good one,” Opara told NJ.com.

“I wanted her to be exposed to not just Yale but other women scientists and students who can inspire her and her sister,” she added.

The Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History added a collection of lanternfly specimens that Wilson captured after her first meeting with Opara.

Wilson’s findings make her one of the youngest to submit specimens to the museum.

Wilson told NJ.com she is “happy and proud” to see the bugs added to Peabody.

The Peabody Museum’s entomology collection holds over 1.5 million insect specimens. The lanternfly specimen is the museum’s first spotted lanternfly collection from the United States, and it was named after Wilson.