Olubukola Oluranti Babalola

Vision statement

OWSD, being a multidisciplinary organization, has to be made attractive to researchers and academics. To this end, I will

• Continue my no-delay response approach to give adequate attention to members
• Assure and ensure the already stimulated high visibility and impact of the book project with Springer
• Sustain and broaden the established relationship with Elsevier (publisher) West, East and South Africa
• Provide 2hr free personalized coaching time (Note, this is not mentoring) for each National Chapter coordinator for them to be successful in the discharge of their duties
• Further enhance the visibility and outreach of OWSD, as well as its impact on the scientific community
• Beef up facilitation on well-laid-down methodology and reproducibility of research findings
• Offer ethics training to members using animal or human subjects
• Reconvene regional conference which COVID-19 disturbed
• Publish with Elsevier the ground-breaking research reported at the 2022 & 2024 regional conference
• Bring national delegates with expertise from different fields to team up with me in the facilitation
• Do teamwork, the key to success in any organization
• Ensure Executive Board meets once in three months to review the activities of OWSD and proffer ways of enhancing its impact.
• Extend my telephone calenderly meeting with OWSD members through video conferences
• Send representatives to attend scientific conferences in the sciences where they will address the participants on the objectives of OWSD

Candidate’s bio

Prof. Olubukola Oluranti Babalola is an NRF rated, internationally published scientist. A product of the premier university of Nigeria & a graduate of the North-West University (NWU) Business School, South Africa. Her dissertation was on Women in STEM leadership. Olubukola obtained Ph.D. in Microbiology with the Visiting Research Fellowship of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) & the Postgraduate Training Fellowships of OWSD. Olubukola, an OWSD alumnus, has been an active member of OWSD since 2000 & has the acquisition of organizational memory of OWSD. She is firmly committed to improving the quality and diversity of OWSD's professional community that is welcoming, inclusive, diverse & equitable for all researchers, academia & industry. Olubukola had two postdoctoral experiences from standard laboratories. First, at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel, through the Feinberg Graduate School & the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) fellowship. The second postdoctoral exposure was at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. She has decades of research experience in rhizosphere metagenomics. Her research support came through grants from the National Research Foundation (NRF) & through the universities. Her research brought her to the limelight for selection as a Research Director at NWU. Olubukola is the incumbent Vice President of OWSD (Africa region) and, without reservation leading, as the head & Principal Investigator, a Microbial Biotechnology Research team. Her laboratory is a mini United Nations, with students from within and outside Africa, making a substantial contribution to Science, her original research motivation. Olubukola belongs to the editorial board for BMC Microbiology (Elsevier) & Biochemistry & Biophysics Reports (Elsevier). Her passion for capacity building has produced 21 PhDs, 20 MScs, & numerous Honors. She is a prolific author with >200 journal articles. In 2018, she delivered her professorial inaugural lecture. She has over 53 certificates in her professional interest areas from the University of California (USA), University of Mauritius, NWU, & Bradford University (UK), to mention a few. She is an AAAS-TWAS Science diplomacy alumnus, a fellow of TWAS and ASSAF. Her wealth of international experience spans the Americas, Asia, Europe, & Oceania. She enjoys international collaborations, research grants, gender lens applications & many awards, including being proclaimed the finalist, GenderInSite 2020.