Patricia (Pat) Castillo-Briceno @PCasbri · May 22

Awesome initiative - great representation from @OwsdSecretariat and specially proud of seeing Natalia Montellano from our Latin America and Caribbean Region. Girls, play and shine for the change we need in sciences and our World 👩 🌐 👩

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In this corner we highlight some of the most exciting recent achievements of our fellows, alumnae, and awardees. Way to go, ladies!

• Atinuke Olusola Adebanji, a 2003 PhD fellow from Nigeria, delivered an Inaugural Lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Ghana in February 2024, on the topic of ‘Facts from Artefacts: A Journey in Statistical Inquisition.”


• Blessing Ogochukwu Agoreyo, a 2001 PhD fellow from Nigeria, was invited to give an Inaugural Lecture at the University of Benin on 'The Critical Role of Post-harvest Biochemistry in the Enhancement of Health, Food Security and Foreign Exchange Earnings' to the university community and general public, in May 2024.


• Paola Alvizuri Tintaya, a 2023 Early Career fellow from Bolivia, was invited to be the main speaker at the webinar for World Water Day organized by the Propacha Foundation, a platform for young people involved in environmental issues in Bolivia. She was also invited by the ELLAS project (Equality in Leadership for Latin America STEM) to speak about equality in STEM leadership at an event in May, and was invited to be a juror in the 2024 Bolivian competition for Falling Walls, a global platform for students and early-career professionals to present their innovative ideas in just three minutes.


• Susana Arrechea, a 2020 OWSD-Elsevier Foundation awardee from Guatemala, received the 2024 Princesa de Girona international award from the Spanish Royal Family Foundation, in the category of social company, for her co-founded company New Sun Road Guatemala and for her efforts to promote STEM to women and girls.


• Chioma Blaise Chikere, a 2005 PhD fellow from Nigeria, in April was been appointed as Head of the Department of Microbiology in the Faculty of Science at University of Port Harcourt.


• Adeola Folasade Ehigie, a 2013 PhD fellow from Nigeria, was promoted to full Professor of Protein Science and Membrane Biochemistry at the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology. She also won the Nigerian government'sTertiary Education Trust Fund (TETfund) postdoctoral fellowship to visit the Rare Diseases Laboratory: Genetics and Metabolism at the University of Bordeaux in France.


• Jackie Epila a 2023 Early Career Fellow from Uganda, was awarded an Impact Scholarship by the Leaders of Africa Institute under the Research Methods Program, as well as Science On the Road Grant through the Open Doors Fellowship by VIB-International Plant Biotechnology Outreach (IPBO), Belgium.


• Dina Fagir, a 2007 PhD fellow from Sudan, has been awarded a postdoctoral fellowship funded by the FA5 grant from the Institute of Tropical Medicine, (ITM, Antwerp, Belgium). The FA5 grant was awarded to the Department of Veterinary Tropical Diseases, Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Pretoria, South Africa. She was also awarded a travel grant to attend and present a poster at the 33rd annual meeting of the American Society of Rickettsiology (ASR), July 2024, in Williamsburg, Virginia, USA.


• Pamella Kageliza, a 2018 PhD fellow from Kenya, began a new position as Lecturer at Strathmore University, USA, in the School of Computing and Engineering Sciences. In April, she and her partner at Kenya Nuclear Regulatory Authority were among 6 pairs to be awarded the CRDF Global Grant for building networks among women in nuclear security and nonproliferation.


• Faten Kamal Eddin, a 2017 PhD fellow from Syria, began a Postdoctoral Researcher position at the College of Optical Engineering at Zhejiang University in China, working on cutting-edge projects in optoelectrical sensors and imaging systems for diagnosing neurological disorders. She was also invited to attend the 73rd Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings in Physics in Zurich, Switzerland in June 2024, where she was selected to participate in an exclusive WORLD.MINDS luncheon discussion on quantum technology at the meeting.


• Thokozile Manaka, a 2018 PhD fellow from Lesotho and recently elected Chair of the OWSD Lesotho National Chapter, published a paper in the journal Neural Processing Letters that presents a natural language processing framework that improves the domain adaptation process of large language models trained on the general English domain to the health domain, with a special focus on datasets from lower and middle-income countries. She was also invited to lecture at The Southern African Institute for Nuclear Technology and Sciences (SAINTS) Ithemba Labs, for a short course on AI and ML Applications in Nuclear and Particle Physics, and was selected for the 2024 African Women in AI and Tech program by UNESCO and AI Movement-UM6P.


• Sahar Gamal Elbager Mohamed, a 2016 PhD fellow from Sudan, was appointed as Dean of the Faculty of Medical Laboratory Sciences at the University of Medical Sciences and Technology (UMST), Sudan.


• Babalola Olubukola Oluranti, OWSD Vice President for the Africa region and a 1999 PhD fellow from Nigeria, is now a Volunteer Mentor for The Africa Academy of Sciences (AAS) Mentorship Programme and the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) Future Leaders Mentorship Fellowship Program.


• Shobha Poudel, a 2018 Early Career fellow from Nepal, has been named one of the 50 most influential women of Nepal by Online Khabar media, as well as one of the 10 most inspiring Nepali women abroad by NepalBritain.com.