Africa Calling - Speakers

Mini-Symposiums

Master of Ceremonies
Mark Casida - Université Grenoble Alpes, FRANCE
	Mark E. CASIDA After receiving his BS in Chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley, MEC went on to do a PhD in Physical Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin at Madison with Prof. John E. Harriman. He then spent 5 years as a postdoc and research associate with Prof. Delano P. Chong at the University of British Columbia. This was followed by 10 years in a Senior Scientist and Computing Professional position at the University of Montreal where he was associated with the group of Prof. Dennis R. Salahub. Since 2001 he has been professor at Grenoble Alps University (formerly the University Joseph Fourier,) MEC has about 80 publications and is one of the coauthors of the deMon codes. His best known work concerns excited states and particularly his pioneering work that helped to make time-dependent density-functional theory (TD-DFT) one of the standard methods for treating excited states in quantum chemistry. His interest in Africa dates back to being one of children who took part (along with present American vice-president Kamala Harris, among many others) in the the voluntary racial integration of the Berkeley Unified School District in 1968 and his exposure to pan-Africanism at that time.
Invited Speakers
Adedapo Adeyinka - University of Johannesburg, SOUTH AFRICA
	Adedapo Adeyinka is a Lecturer at the Department of Chemical Sciences, University of Johannesburg. He completed his PhD at the University of Pretoria and spent two years conducting Postdoctoral research at Northwest University, South Africa. His research interests span the field of computational/theoretical chemistry, cheminformatics, and machine learning in chemistry. He has published several articles involving computational chemistry techniques to explain chemical reactivity in international peer-reviewed journals.
Kamel Alimi - University of Monastir, TUNISIA
	Kamel Alimi is Full Professor in the Department of Physics of the Faculty of Sciences of Monastir, Tunisia. His field of research is organic materials science in polymers in particular. He has developed two interconnected subjects, namely, experimental work involving both synthesis and characterization of compounds and theoretical work using density-functional theory. His objective is to find new polymeric materials that might be used as an active layer in optoelectronic devices such as organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) and organic photocells (OPCs).
Anne Justine Etindele - University of Yaounde, CAMEROON
	Dr. Anne Justine Etindele is a Lecturer at the Higher Teacher Training College of the University of Yaounde I in Cameroon. She obtained a PhD in Molecular Physics from the University of Douala. Her research work is carried out in two main areas: the study of the electronic properties of two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenoides and the study of the antioxidant mechanism of the C60 fullerene.
Lucy Kiriuri - Kenyatta University, KENYA
	Lucy W. Kiruri studied for a Bachelor’s degree and Msc at Kenyatta University. She then pursued a PhD at Louisiana State University on Environmentally Persistent Free Radicals. After the award of her PhD, she joined Kenyatta University as a lecturer in Physical & Computational Chemistry. In March 2018, she was appointed as a Regular Associate of The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP). Her current research entails molecular modelling techniques, ranging from quantum chemistry to Molecular Dynamics (MD) in order to investigate fundamental properties of materials and structural phenomena at nanoscale, kinetic pathways, and reaction mechanism at atomistic scale. She has also done research on Protein – Ligand docking, Drugs encapsulation and natural products compounds aggregation and self-assembly.
Hitler Louis - University of Calabar, NIGERIA
	Hitler Louis is a Nigerian Scientist, a native of Bare-Bwazza in Numan Local Government Area of Adamawa State. He graduated with First Class (Hons.) in Industrial Chemistry from the Federal University of Technology, Yola, Nigeria in 2013. He joined as faculty member at the Department of Pure and Applied Chemistry, University of Calabar, Calabar, Nigeria in 2016. After his M.Sc. degree in 2019 from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences - China, Louis set up the prestigious and dynamic Computational research group called “Computational and Bio-Simulation Research Group”, University of Calabar, Calabar, Nigeria on the 5th of May, 2020. The main objective of the research group is to employ state-of-the-art techniques and methodologies in Computational Chemistry to unravel the electronic properties of the system of interest along with applications in the areas of sensor, catalysis, drug design, spectroscopy among others. In 2022 alone, Louis and co-workers have authored 40 Scopus index verifiable documents which lead to his ranking as the 85th top scientist in Nigeria according to Scopus scholarly productivity output between 2019 and 2022. He is interested in interdisciplinary projects and collaborations with experimentalists all over the world.
Samar Mahmoud - Optibrium Ltd, UNITED KINGDOM
	Samar is a principal research scientist at Optibrium Ltd, Cambridge, UK. Samar applies machine learning and artificial intelligence methods to help accelerate drug discovery projects. She led collaborative projects with pharmaceutical and biotech companies as well as academic institutions. Samar has a degree in Pharmacy from the University of Khartoum, Sudan, where she also worked as a lecturer of pharmaceutical chemistry. Samar then obtained her PhD in cheminformatics and computational toxicology from the University of Cambridge, where she used data mining techniques to gain novel insights into mechanisms of chemical-induced toxicity.
Workshop Panellists
Edet Archibong - University of Namibia, NAMIBIA
	Education: BSc (Hons) University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria. MSc: University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. PhD: University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. Current Position: Lecturer, University of Namibia. Area of Specialization: Computational Chemistry. Current Projects: (1) Computational Study of Biologically Active Compounds extracted from Plants. (2) Computational Study of Semi-Conductor Clusters and Organic Dyes. Hobby: Political discourse and Ping Pong
Dominique Buyens - University of Pretoria, SOUTH AFRICA
	Dominique Buyens is a postdoctoral fellow in chemistry education at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, in the group of Professor Lynne Pilcher. She obtained her degree in biochemistry and moved into chemistry during her postgraduate studies. She completed her PhD in physical organic chemistry with a focus on chemical and enzyme kinetics where she employed computational modelling to study the chemical reactivity of adenine.
Collins Okon Edet - Cross River University of Technology, NIGERIA
	Collins Edet is a lecturer and researcher in the department of physics, Cross River University of Technology, Calabar, Nigeria. He has published numerous journal articles, indexed in web of science (WOS), Scopus, Journal Citation Report (JCR) etc. His research articles have been cited more than 1000 times on Google Scholar with h-index of 21 and 34 i10-index making him one of the most cited researcher in Cross River University of Technology. He serves as a reviewer to many prestigious journals focusing on Mathematical Physics and related areas such as Scientific Reports, Nature; Heliyon, Elsevier; International Journal of Quantum Chemistry, John Wiley & Sons; Journal of the Nigerian Society of Physical Science; Ukranian Journal of Physics; Journal of Low Temperature Physics, Springer; Indian Journal of Physics, Springer; European Physical Journal plus (EPJP), Springer etc. He is currently a Co-Guest Editor of a Special Issue: "Recent Advances in Applications of Potential Models to Study Physical Systems" hosted by the Journal of the Nigerian Society of Physical Sciences (JNSPS). He is a member of the American Physical Society, member of the Nigerian Society of Physical Science (NSPS) and member of the Nigerian Institute of Physics (NIP). His research interest includes: Quantum/Mathematical physics (Wave Mechanics, Atomic structure, Topological defect and Molecular processes in external fields) and Quantum Information Theory. In collaboration with Dr. A. N. Ikot Theoretical Physics research group and Professor Ramazan Sever, they have successfully developed a new simplified method for solving second order differential equations (Few Body Systems. 62 (2021) 9). This method has received enormous attention in the mathematical science community. He has attended and participated in several national and international scientific conferences.
Krishna Govender - Center for High Performance Computing, SOUTH AFRICA
	Doctor Krishna Govender is a Senior Research Scientist at the Center for High Performance Computing (CHPC), specializing in Computational Chemistry and Material Science. He currently supports the largest number of high-performance computing (HPC) users on the cluster. He is the lead lecturer for the various human capital development (HCD) events that are run by the CHPC, including the CHPC-NITheCS Coding Summer School, CHPC Winter School and various CHPC outreach events with high school learners from Grade 10 – 11. He is a Y2 rated NRF researcher that holds a Senior Research Associate position within the Department of Chemical Sciences at the University of Johannesburg. He has successfully graduated 2 MSc students with distinction and 3 PhD students. Since joining the CHPC in 2015 he has published over 30 peer reviewed papers in high impact journals. He also has ongoing collaborations with the University of KwaZulu Natal, Durban University of Technology, University of Fort Hare, University of Cape Town, Cape Peninsular University of Technology, University of Ghana and University of Sri Jayewardenepura.
Winfred Mueni Mulwa - Egerton University, KENYA
	Dr. Winfred Mueni Mulwa is a lecturer in Computational Physics at Egerton University. She obtained her PhD in combine computational and experimental condensed matter Physics from University of the Free State – South Africa. In February 2022, she was elected as the chairperson Organization for Women in Science for the Developing world (OWSD) – Kenya Chapter. On 8th June 2022, she was employed in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana – Champain as a visiting scholar. Her current research focuses on: (i) high-throughput computational design and discovery of novel thermoelectric materials (ii) Iron based magnetic refrigerants.