Marian Ewurama Addy

Marian Ewurama Addy was a Ghanaian biochemist and the first Ghanaian woman to attain the rank of full professor in the natural sciences. As the first quiz mistress of the National Science and Maths Quiz she became a role model for girls interested in science. In 1999 she won the UNESCO Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science.

Early life and education

She was born Marian Ewurama Cole on 7 February 1942 in Nkawkaw, in the Eastern Region, to Samuel Joseph Cole and Angelina Kwofie Cole. She attended Holy Child School in Cape Coast and St Monica's Secondary School in Mampong-Ashanti (1956 to 1960), where she excelled at sport. She earned a first-class degree in botany with chemistry from the University of Ghana, then a master's and a PhD in biochemistry from Pennsylvania State University.

Academic career

She taught at the University of Ghana, where she became the first female professor in the sciences, and headed the Department of Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology from 1988 to 1991 and 1994 to 1997, before retiring in 2002. She also lectured at Howard University College of Medicine in Washington. Her research examined the safety and effectiveness of herbal medicines. Work on Desmodium adscendens, used by herbalists for asthma and allergies, identified its active compounds as soyasaponins, and she published 22 papers on herbal treatments for asthma, anaphylaxis, diabetes and hypertension.

She directed the Science Education Programme for Africa, served on the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission board (1996 to 1998) and the WHO regional expert committee on traditional medicine, and founded the Western Africa Network of Natural Products Research Scientists in 2002. In January 2008 she became the first President of the Anglican University College of Technology.

National Science and Maths Quiz

She was the first quiz mistress of the National Science and Maths Quiz, the televised contest between senior high schools, which she used to show that science mattered in daily life and to draw more girls into it. She later recommended Eureka Emefa Adomako as her successor.

Honours and family

She was elected a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1999 and made an Officer of the Order of the Volta. Her autobiography, Rewards, appeared in 2011. She was married to Ebenezer Charles Oko Addy, a sociologist and Commonwealth Games relay gold medallist, and they had two daughters.

Death

She died at Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital on 14 January 2014 and was buried at Saltpond on 1 March 2014. The University of Ghana named its medicinal plants research laboratory after her and holds an annual memorial lecture in her name.