Nigeria’s President, Bola Tinubu has sent hearty congratulations to six distinguished Diaspora Nigerian scientists and engineers named among the 400 Presidential Early Career Award recipients for Scientists and Engineers in the United States.
The prestigious recognition, established by former President Bill Clinton in 1996, is the highest honour bestowed by the United States government on outstanding scientists and engineers in the early stages of their careers.
This year’s awardees, announced by President Joe Biden on January 14, 2025, are employed or funded by 14 participating United States government agencies.
Ijeoma Opara:
Dr. Ijeoma Opara, a distinguished Nigerian-American scientist and an Associate Professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Yale University School of Public Health, was recently awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) by US President Joe Biden for her research in public health, particularly among urban youth.
Other earlier awards include the NIH Director’s Early Independence Award in 2020 and the NIDA Racial Equity Initiative Visionary Pioneer Award in 2023. She also earlier received the John D. Slade, MD Memorial Advocacy Award and the Woman of Impact Award.
Opara lost her parents at a young age due to illness. She lost her mother to diabetes and her father to a heart attack. This painful loss shaped her decision into public health to dismantle the systemic barriers that contribute to poor health with a focus on black girls.
Opara is committed to educating and mentoring future researchers by providing lab visits and internships to high school and college students in urban areas.
Her study has been crucial in demonstrating how race, as a social construct shaped by white supremacy and anti-black racism, affects health outcomes.
Opara holds a PhD in Family Science and Human Development from Montclair State University, a Master’s degree in Social Work from New York University, a Master’s degree in Public Health in Epidemiology from New York Medical College, and a Bachelor of Arts’ degree from New Jersey City University.
Opara is the founder and director of Stony Brook University’s Substance Abuse and Sexual Health Lab, as well as an associate professor at Yale School of Public Health. She was previously an assistant professor at Stony Brook University and a lecturer at Columbia School of Social Work.
She also heads a consulting outfit that provides training to adolescents, community-based groups, businesses and schools on different themes pertaining to substance use prevention and sexual health.
Joan Okorodudu
Joan Okorodudu is a prominent Nigerian fashion entrepreneur, model scout, skincare technician, and former Nigerian beauty queen.
Okorodudu received the prestigious Lifetime Presidential Award on October 7, 2024, as a result of her steadfast devotion to promoting African artists, culture, and fashion as well as her support of the Kakuma Refugees camp and young women.
Mrs. Joan Okorodudu was born in 1958 in Auchi, Nigeria, and attended a local government primary school, Ebu Lokoja Kogi State, and Itohan Girls Grammar School in Benin City, where she actively participated in athletics, which earned her a scholarship to Boston University in Massachusetts, where she earned a degree in political science.
During her NYSC, she applied for Miss Nigeria (Kaduna Zone) and won, which got her to the final in Lagos, where she won a car as the first runner-up.
During her early age, she was politically active as a member of the United Party Nigeria’s youth section. Also, she was active in American politics during Bill Clinton’s administration and she met President Biden when he visited the area for his campaigns and campaigned locally for Clinton in Wilmington, Delaware.
Her journey to the fashion world started at age 5 when she posses to take photographs like a model.
Later, during a trip to South Africa in 2007, Joan and her colleague Juliet Morgan now Mrs. Eke found themselves making an unplanned decision that gave birth to Isis Models Africa, a leading modeling agency in Africa after the South Africa Fashion Week and has regularly produces talented models that walk the most sought-after runways in Paris, Milan, New York, and other cities.
She is also the founder of an NGO dedicated to empowering young African talent, Runways to Freedom as well as Nigeria’s Next Super Model, a platform that has produced talents featured in international fashion events in Madrid, Paris, Milan, and other fashion capitals.
She is married to retired air vice-marshal and two-star Air Force General of the Nigerian Air Force Terry Omatsola Okorodudu, whom she met on the same flight. The couple have a son Bidemi Okorodudu.
Azeez Butali
Azeez Butali is a world-renowned expert in the genetics of cleft lip and palate, especially within African populations. These conditions, which affect millions worldwide, often lead to challenges with eating, speaking, and hearing. Butali’s research has uncovered genetic factors contributing to these conditions, particularly in African populations.
Butali holds the position of Gilbert E. Lilly Professor of Diagnostic Sciences at the University of Iowa’s College of Dentistry. He joined the university in 2008 and has since earned several prestigious awards, including the Inventor Award and the Leadership in Research Award. In 2023, he was named the 23rd endowed professor in the college.
In February 2020, Butali was awarded a five-year grant exceeding $3.2 million by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. His project, titled “Refining the Genetic and Genomic Architecture of Non-Syndromic Orofacial Clefts,” focuses on identifying genetic variants associated with cleft lip and palate in African populations.
The project’s goals include replicating and analysing genetic data from genome-wide association studies on cleft conditions and completing whole-genome sequencing of 150 African families to identify rare genetic variants and conducting in-depth analyses of significant genetic variants to understand their role in clefting.
Butali’s work extends beyond scientific research to address real-world challenges. He has helped improve access to care for families affected by cleft lip and palate in Africa. Additionally, he has worked on addressing cultural and mental health challenges unique to these communities.
Butali is also a co-investigator in a $3.1 million NIH-funded study on non-syndromic hearing loss. For this project, he collaborates with researchers in Nigeria to recruit 500 families and analyse genetic data to identify variants contributing to hearing loss.
Professor Oluwasanmi Koyejo
Professor Oluwasanmi Koyejo was on January 14 named among recipients of the 400 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in the United States.
The prestigious recognition, established by former President Bill Clinton in 1996, is the highest honour bestowed by the United States Government on outstanding scientists and engineers in the early stages of their careers.
He is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University. Koyejo is also an Adjunct Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
His interests are in developing the principles and practice of trustworthy machine learning. Koyejo also focuses on applications to neuroscience and healthcare.
4. He earned his PhD in Electrical Engineering (2013) at the University of Texas at Austin.
Koyejo has been the recipient of several awards including a Best Paper award from the Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI), a Skip Ellis Early Career Award and a Sloan Fellowship.
His work, backed by the US National Science Foundation (NSF), centres on fairness and robustness in artificial intelligence.