Young African scholars selected to attend prestigious Nobel Laureate meetings

Nine outstanding young African scholars nominated by the African Academy of Sciences have been selected to participate in two prestigious Nobel Laureate meetings.

The academics will participate in the 67th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting dedicated to chemistry, which takes place on 25-30 June and the 6th Lindau Meeting on Economic Sciences on 22-26 August.

The meetings will be held in Germany to promote networking between young scientists and Nobel Laureates. They provide a cardinal moment and opportunity to interact with the best minds in the world, and for young scientists to be inspired to achieve greatness in their own work. 

The seven African chemists who will participate at the 67th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting will be part of 400 young scientists from 76 countries attending the meeting. The Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings, which alternate between physiology/medicine, physics and chemistry – the three-natural science Nobel Prize disciplines – have been held since 1951.

This year’s meeting will be attended by about 30 Nobel Laurates.

The seven AAS nominees from Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and Zimbabwe are:

• Ousmane Ilboudo, an assistant professor at Burkina Faso’s University of Ouagadougou.
• Blaise Kimbadi Lombe, a PhD student in natural products chemistry at the University of Wuerzburg, Germany, and who is from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
• Marian Asantewah Nkansah, a senior Lecturer in environmental chemistry at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana.
• Collins Obuah,a lecturer in catalysis and bioinorganic chemistry at the University of Ghana.
• John Onyango Adongo, a Kenya-born doctoral candidate at the Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin in Germany.
• Nolwazi Nombona, a lecturer in electrochemistry and nanotechnology at South Africa’s University of KwaZulu-Natal.
• Sarah D'Souza, a Zimbabwe-born nanochemist and postdoctoral fellow at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa.

The Lindau Meeting on Economic Sciences has been held every three years since 2004. The two African economists who have been selected to join 360 young economists from 66 nations are:

• Samar Mahmoud Mohamed Abdelmageed, an assistant lecturer in Business Administration at the British University in Egypt.
• Eleni Yitbarek, a postdoctoral research fellow studying social and economic policies at the University of Pretoria in South Africa.

“At the AAS, we recognise the importance of mentorship in helping to grow careers of young scientists,” said AAS Interim Executive Director Tom Kariuki.  “The meetings are a unique opportunity for African scientists to network and be inspired by Nobel Laureates.”

The profiles of the nine Africans nominated to attend the Lindau meetings are here http://www.aasciences.ac.ke/academy/academy-pages/lindau-nobel-laureate-meetings/