Aba Andam

Aba Andam is Ghana's first female physicist. When she did her PhD at Durham University in the late 1970s, she was the only woman physicist in her department. Between 2017 and 2019 she led the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences as its president.

Education

Born in 1948 at Ajumako Kokoben in the Central Region, she went to Mfantsiman Secondary School. She studied physics and mathematics at the University of Cape Coast (1969-73), then went to Britain for a master's at the University of Birmingham and a doctorate in cosmic radiation physics at Durham (1978-81).

Research

She joined the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in 1981 and later headed its physics department. In 1986 and 1987 she worked on charmed mesons at the DESY laboratory in Germany. Her later research, at Kumasi's Nuclear Research Laboratory, measured how much radon Ghanaians are exposed to and worked on safety standards for X-ray examinations. She became a chartered physicist in 1986.

Women in science

Since 1987 she has taken part in the Science Clinics for Girls, which encourage girls to study science and mathematics, and from 1996 to 2002 she was UNESCO chair for Women in Science and Technology in West Africa. She became President of the Ghana Institute of Physics in 2019 and has sat on the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics' commission on physics and development. She also speaks French fluently.