Meet Nigerian Scholar, Omowunmi Sadik, Who Invented Explosive-detection Device In US

A United States-based Nigerian female professor, Omowunmi Sadik, invented microelectrode biosensors for the detection of drugs and explosives.

Sadik has also worked on the development of technologies for recycling metal ions from waste. This is for use in environmental and industrial applications.

She was born in Lagos, on June 19, 1964. Sadik is a chemist and inventor working at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, in the United States.

Sadik co-founded the non-profit Sustainable Nanotechnology Organization.

She received her bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Lagos in 1985. She then went on to receive her master’s degree in chemistry in 1987. 

The scholar attended Wollongong University in Australia. In 1994, she received her Ph.D in chemistry from Wollongong.

A postdoctoral fellowship from the National Research Council supported her as a researcher at the US Environmental Protection Agency from 1994 to 1996.

She has held many distinguished scholar and research positions around the world. And she is currently a visiting lecturer at the Naval Research Laboratories, Cornell University, and Harvard University.

Her invention

About her invention, Omowunmi Sadik studies surface chemistry. But she’s particular on the development of biosensors for use in environmental chemistry.

She has found that conducting polymers are especially promising for use in sensing applications and developed microelectrode biosensors sensitive to trace amounts of organic materials, technology which can be used for drug and bomb detection. 

She is also studying detoxification mechanisms of wastes such as organochlorine compounds in the environment, to develop technologies for recycling metal ions from industrial and environmental waste.

Her invention has been widely applauded similar to the development of an insect control technology by another Nigerian don in Brazil.

The 59-year-old is credited with more than 135 peer-reviewed research papers and patent applications. 

Among many awards for her works, she got the National Research Council (NRC) COBASE fellowship in 2000, the Chancellor’s Award for Research in Science and Medicine, in 2001, Chancellor’s Award for Premier Inventors, in 2002 both at the State University of New York System.

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