While economic realities in Nigeria might be harsh, with public sector corruption severely denting the country’s image, Nigerians have proved their metal in different fields and profession, excelling mostly outside the boundaries of Nigeria. Let’s look at four Nigerian space scientists breaking boundaries globally.

Maggie Aderin-Pocock

Margaret Ebunoluwa Aderin-Pocock MBE (née Aderin; born 9 March 1968) is a British Nigerian space scientist and science educator. She is an honorary research associate of University College London’s Department of Physics and Astronomy. Since February 2014, she has co-presented the long-running astronomy television programme The Sky at Night with Chris Lintott. In 2020 she was awarded the Institute of Physics William Thomson, Lord Kelvin Medal and Prize for her public engagement in physics.

Margaret Ebunoluwa Aderin Aderin was born in London on 9 March 1968 to Nigerian parents, Caroline Philips and Justus Adebayo Aderin, and was raised in Camden, London. Her middle name Ebunoluwa stems from the Yoruba words, “Ebun” meaning “gift” and Oluwa meaning “God”, which is also a variant form of the word “Oluwabunmi” or “Olubunmi”, meaning “gift of God” in Yoruba.

Maggie studied at Imperial College London, graduated with a BSc in physics in 1990, and completed her PhD in mechanical engineering under the supervision of Hugh Spikes in 1994.

Aderin-Pocock has worked on many projects in private industry, academia, and in government. From 1996 to 1999 she worked at the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency, a branch of the UK Ministry of Defence. Initially, she worked as a systems scientist on aircraft missile warning systems, and from 1997 to 1999 she was a project manager developing hand-held instruments to detect landmines.

She was the lead scientist at Astrium, where she managed observation instruments on a satellite, measuring wind speeds to help the investigation of climate change. She is working on and managing the observation instruments for the Aeolus satellite, which will measure wind speeds to help the investigation of climate change.

Aderin-Pocock is committed to inspiring new generations of astronauts, engineers, and scientists.


Rabia Salihu Sa’id

Rabia Salihu Sa’id is a Nigerian physicist and professor of atmospheric and space-weather physics at the Bayero University Kano. She conducts research in atmospheric and space weather physics, particle physics, and electronics. Sa’id is an advocate and mentor for young women in science with the Visiola Foundation and Peace Corps. She is also co-founder of Nigeria’s Association of Women Physicists and a facilitator for the British Council’s Active Citizens’ Programme.

Sa’id began her university education at the age of 29 and ran a nursery school to pay for her education. She holds a Bachelor of Science, Masters of Science and Ph.D degrees in Physics from Bayero University Kano. In 2002, on the International Fellowships Program (IFP) of the Ford Foundation, she studied for an M.Sc degree in Environment and Development from the University of Reading, United Kingdom.

In 2015 she was a recipient of one of the five Elsevier Foundation Awards for Women Scientists in the Developing World. Presented in partnership with the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD) and The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), the awards that year were for the physics and mathematics fields, with Sa’id’s award in the field of atmospheric physics.

In August 2015, Sa’id was featured in the BBC’s annual 100 Women series, highlighting her efforts to promote science education in Nigeria.

Hakeem Oluseyi

As a child, Hakeem Oluseyi moved between rough neighborhoods in the American South, until finally settling in a poor community in rural Mississippi at the age of 13.

Hakeem’s interest in physics continued into high school, where he created a computer program that did relativity calculations. When his program won first prize in physics at the state science fair, judges told him to become a physicist. Since Hakeem didn’t really know what physicists did, he dismissed the idea and chose to enlist in the Navy. But not long after, Hakeem decided to major in physics at Tougaloo College, a small historically black college in Mississippi.

Hakeem did research for the first time at a summer program at the University of Georgia. He was pleasantly surprised by the freedom and responsibility he was given and found that he fit well into the research community, even though he was one of only a few African Americans.

After finishing up with school, Hakeem worked at one of Silicon Valley’s most successful companies and did research on manufacturing computer chips. This work earned him 8 U.S. patents and 4 E.U. patents. Hakeem’s inventions can be found in the computer chips you use every day.

Hakeem, however, longed for the big ideas of astronomy and astrophysics, and returned to astrophysics research. He worked with the 2011 Nobel Prize winning Supernova Cosmology Project, developing detectors for a planned space-based telescope that will investigate the nature of the dark energy that is accelerating the universe’s expansion.

Today, he is a member of the team developing the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), which is America’s top priority observatory. He has worked on developing the LSST’s camera and is developing programs for analyzing the data it will collect.

In addition to astrophysics, Hakeem also has a passion for communicating science to the public.
He is a professor at the Florida Institute of Technology, and a frequent contributor to the Discovery Channel and National Geographic. He has given multiple TED talks and is regularly invited to speak at science forums all around the world. For his science outreach work, he was selected as a 2012 TED Global Fellow.

In 2002, through an organization called Cosmos Education, Hakeem began visiting sub-Saharan African schools to inspire young students with science demonstrations.

Babatunde Akinsanmi

Akinsanmi led a research team which discovered (for the first time) that rings exist around exoplanets in our Solar system.

An international team of researchers, led by Babatunde Akinsanmi (PhD student at the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences (IA) and the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto) found statistical evidence that indicates that the exoplanet HIP 41378 f is similar to Uranus with a ring system around it, inclined by about 25 degrees, and extending from 1.05 to 2.59 times the diameter of the planet.

“These ‘cotton candy’ planets are a rare class of exoplanets, with densities much lower than that of the giant planets in the Solar System. It is difficult to explain these very low densities and that is why we decided to investigate what was happening ”. “What we found was that the presence of rings around this planet can explain the observed low density. The rings make the planet’s diameter look much larger when it passes in front of the star (during transit), Babatunde Akinsanmi explained.

Babatunde Akinsanmi obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Physics from the Federal University of Technology Akure in 2010. He was awarded the M.Sc. in Astronomy by the University of Porto in 2017 and started his PhD in Astronomy at the same university in collaboration with the Institute of Astronomy in Porto (IA).

His main research interest is in the field of exoplanets involving the search and characterisation of exoplanets using the transit and radial velocity methods. He specifically works on detecting novel exoplanetary features such as rings, tidal deformation and rotation-induced oblateness in exoplanets.

Babatunde Akinsanmi is a scientific officer at the Nigerian National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA)..

Source:
https://newswatch24tv.com/2020/11/13/meet-4-nigerian-space-scientists-breaking-boundaries/

To think that the country of origin of these geniuses is governed by the kind of people at the helm of affairs is mind-boggling.

It’s like trying to come to terms with a reality that the country Niger or maybe Chad is giving financial aid to the Swiss government to help the European country in their health and educational sectors.

calberian:
To think that the country of origin of these geniuses is governed by the kind of people at the helm of affairs is mind-boggling.

It’s like trying to come to terms with a reality that the country Niger or maybe Chad is giving financial aid to the Swiss government to help the European country in their health and educational sectors.

This is well put chief, I hope one day Nigeria would live up to it's actual status and big brains such as these will be given the respect and recognition they deserve.