Professor Philippa Chinyere Ojimelukwe is a female scientist with a background (B.Sc.) in Biochemistry and higher degrees (M.Sc. and Ph.D.) in Food Science and Technology. She has up to 30 years teaching and research experience in the Nigerian university system and has taught Food Chemistry, Food Analysis, Food biotechnology and many other Food Science courses for many years. Her research has been focused on African local underutilized foods (up to 50) and plant products. She studies their nature, composition and changes in nutrients during processing in relation to their health benefits. She is particularly interested in the use of local foods and plant products to prevent and manage non-communicable diseases such as type 2 diabetes. She has extensively studied the up-grading of many African fermented foods using biotechnology to improve their probiotic potentials.
Professor Philippa has benefitted from research funds from the International Foundation for Science (3 times) UNESCO, Tertiary Education Fund (TETFund) Nigeria and the institutional DFID funded Climate Impacts Research Capacity Leadership Enhancement (CIRCLE), which she attracted as the University research Director and utilized it to define the path of research and capacity development at Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Abia State, Nigeria for six years. She is also a recipient of the university research grant and the German Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship post- doctoral fellowship. She is a beneficiary of the African Union Kwame Nkrumah regional award (2021) and the Marquis Lifetime achievement award of excellence in her field.
Professor Philippa has partnered with the African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD), One Planet Fellowship and CIRCLE to mentor early career scientists. She has also shown keen interest in African research and development as a resource person to Author AID online MOOCs for developing country researchers in scientific and proposal writing.
