Food Security and Safety: African Perspectives

Professor Olubukola Oluranti Babalola (Pr.Sci.Nat, MASSAF) is the Vice President of the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World, and a National Research Foundation rated established, scientist. She received her PhD (Microbiology) in 2000 from the University of Ibadan and completed an MBA in Science Leadership from the North-West University (NWU) School of Business. She is a product of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture and had postdoctoral experiences from Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, and the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. She is the Research Director of Food Security and Safety at NWU and previous Head of Biology Department and without reservation leading, as the Principal Investigator, a Microbial Biotechnology laboratory. Olubukola is a trainer of trainees; she leads a research team of over a dozen scholars from different tribes and tongues. Her laboratory is a mini united nation, with students from within and outside Africa. She has graduated 14 PhDs, 16 masters, and 48 Honors students. Olubukola's areas of research interest are Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions, Soil Metagenomics, Food Security, and Microbial Ecology. She enjoys international collaborations, research grants, and many awards. Olubukola is a prolific author with ~200 publications. She has over 40 professional certificates from the University of California, Berkeley, USA; University of Mauritius, Reduit; NWU, South Africa, and Bradford University, the UK, to mention a few. Her wealth of international experience spans through the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania.