USAP Nigeria Profiles
Profiles for our Nigerian students are still coming in and we will update this page as they become available. Below we profile the students whose information we have on file.
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Odaro Omusi
University of Notre Dame '11
Odaro comes from a culturally diverse family that unites both southern and northern Nigeria with his father hailing from Benin in Edo state and his mother from Kaduna. However, he has spent most of his life in metropolitan Lagos.
He was a student of Loyola Jesuit College, one of the top secondary schools in the country where he excelled by graduating in the top five percent of his class and achieving the best result in the West African Secondary School Certificate Examinations. He was thereafter admitted into USAP where he realized the opportunities abroad that his hard work had opened up for him.
He is studying for a bachelors degree in electrical engineering. At Notre Dame, he is an active member of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE). He also participates in intramural sports including indoor and outdoor soccer. Interestingly, most of his time away from his books and engineering projects is spent on the dance floor because in his search to diversify his talents, he joined Project Fresh, the Notre Dame urban dance crew, where he has quickly learned both freestyle and break dancing and now performs at school events ranging from football pep rallies to charity events.
Odaro believes that his potential and fascination with electrical systems will drive him past all obstacles to excel in the US as he did in West Africa. He looks to fortify his education by participating in the Notre Dame-London engineering study abroad program in 2009 and by interning with technology firms not only in the US but also in Nigeria where he wants to spend the greater part of his career working with communication systems.
Temitope Tabitha Ojo
Mount Holyoke College '11
Temitope Tabitha Ojo is a Nigerian sophomore (2010) currently attending Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts, U.S.A. She hails from Ondo State, South West Nigeria but has lived in the country's capital, Abuja most of her life. She is a Biochemistry major and an Anthropology minor, while fulfilling pre-med requirements at college. She is an active member of the Mount Holyoke Track and Field Team, co-chair of MHC SAAFE (Substance Abuse Awareness or Everyone) on campus and a Peer Career Advisor at the college's Career Development Center. In the summer of 2007, she was a recipient of the HHMI-Yale Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship and researched at Yale University.
Her dream is to write and travel round the world, while practicing medicine with a focus on epidemics, infectious diseases and community health. In the future, she hopes to feature in the National Geographic magazine. She is a music lover and enjoys them in several languages. She also has an appreciation for art and history, especially in culture, music and dance.
Temitope comes from a family of six, having three siblings. She attended Loyola Jesuit College in Abuja, Nigeria for her high school education.
Tomiwa Osunkoya
Lafayette College '11
Tomiwa Osunkoya is a USAP student from Nigeria. She comes from Ogun State and is the first child in a family of three. She graduated from Loyola Jesuit College in Nigeria in 2006. She is currently a student at Lafayette College majoring in Chemical Engineering. Apart from a being a student, she is also a teaching assistant for a chemistry course in her college. One of her goals in life is to be the best of what she is and so with chemical engineering she hopes to be one of the best in her field and use her knowledge to help develop her country. She has been a member of the Nigerian Children's Parliament since 2003. This organization works under the Ministry of Women Affairs and its goal is to make the Nigerian child's voice heard by the Government in whatever decisions they make. When she graduates, she also wants to be a big support to that group by helping the Nigerian child in whatever way possible, especially through proper education.
Her hobbies are listening to music and delving into the cultures of wide array of countries. She believes strongly in the aspect of unity in diversity and plans on improving her social life and knowledge by associating with other people from various cultures.
Israel Ukawuba
Oberlin College '11
The fourth son in a family of seven children, Israel Ukawuba, a graduate of Legacy High School, is currently a student of Oberlin College, Ohio. He intends to double major in Environmental studies and Engineering.
Moreso, he plans on pursuing a career in Conceptual Engineering with a focus on Earth and Environment Engineering after he graduates. His important achievements are remaining focused on his passion and realizing the opportunities he has to take advantage so as to gain fulfillment in his career pursuit. His achievements in high school, he sees as an elevation to acknowledge where his future lies.
His passion, is interfaced with his dream of leading a positive life in the cause of environmentalism and the management of energy resources. In his own words,
"I see my future as an extensive pathway of realizable courses to affect my natural society and to find resolution for my country’s environment’s health status. I strongly believe in the race to remedy our communities of the harm of global warming; thus our communal perspective and culture should be that humanity's fate is not divorced from that of the natural world, and that our responsibility to nature is - at best - limited to the satisfaction and our concern for the conservation and improvement of our natural environment, local, regional and world-wide".
A young man from Owerri, Imo state, Nigeria, his hobbies include reading and playing the guitar. He intends to join The Environmental Policy Implementation Group (EPIG) in college and to start an environmental theme-house on campus, whose occupants will use the least appropriate amount of energy and minimize energy waste.
Victor Babatunde
Bates College '11
Harvard Medical School '17
Born and bred in the bustling metropolis of Lagos, Victor honed his thirst for knowledge in the sciences, and to a lesser extent in the humanities. After completing high school in the esteemed Kings College Lagos, he set sights on pursuing liberal arts studies in the US. His burgeoning passion for the sciences and his flirtations with the humanities led him to travel more than 20 degrees in latitude to Bates College in Maine. Although he was welcomed to beautiful fall scenery of the campus on his arrival, he became quickly acquainted to the cold, long winters in Maine. All was set for a challenging yet incredible four year journey at Bates. As he came out of his "Naija" shell, he gradually bought into unfamiliar lifestyles that included outdoor camping, hiking, skiing, ice-skating, bundling up during the winter, and wearing as little as possible on not-so cold days. On the academic front, Victor developed his deep interest in the sciences eventually majoring in biological chemistry. Concurrently with his major, he explored his fascination with philosophy, literature and bioethics. His favorite classes were those courses that probed the ever so blurry lines between science and society. Victor's understanding of practical everyday issues continues to be shaped by his liberal arts education.
A wise person once said: "Life is short, spend it like a tourist". Victor took that literally. He hopped around cities, from New York City where he completed research internships at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, to underserved neighborhoods in Lewiston/Auburn, Maine where he was involved in tutoring, mentoring and volunteering with health organizations. Realizing that even a tourist has a home, he found one in the Africana club which he helped convene in his first year. Victor found his life-long friends within this group as he joined them to share nuances of African cultures and beliefs, debate African issues, play intramural soccer and wallyball(volleyball with walls) and collaborate on bringing African affairs on the forefront of campus discussions. Notwithstanding, he and his comrades ("Africanophiles") also took time to celebrate African cultures with cultural shows, dinner events and trademark dance nights. Long live Abule Musha!!!
In order to broaden his scientific expertise, Victor took time-off after college to be part of a research lab in Boston. There he learned to use genetic tools like microarrays to uncover the mysteries of type-2 diabetes and certain autoimmune diseases. During his research years, he realized that a medical career provides the perfect umbrella for him to both explore the sciences and make powerful impact in the lives of those around him. The next chapter of his life takes him to the clinical realm. Currently, Victor is in training to become a physician at Harvard Medical School.
In all this, he gives thanks to God and acknowledges the support of his family, friends and USAP. His story has only just begun.
Jacinta Edebeli
Mount Holyoke College '11
Jacinta Edebeli comes from Anegbette Village of Edo state, Nigeria. She graduated from Delta Steel Primary School in 1999 and from Loyola Jesuit College in 2005. At Loyola she was an active athlete. She played basketball, soccer, handball, and ran the 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1500m and did long jump. She represented Nigeria in the 2005 Pan-African Mathematics Olympiad in Algeria. She spent two years at the Federal University of Technology Owerri before coming to the United States.
She is presently a dual degree student studying Environmental Studies at Mount Holyoke College and Civil and Environmental Engineering in a joint program with the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is very passionate about the environment and works towards the conservation of natural resources especially water as well as pollution control. She continues in the spirit of athletics by being an active member of the Mount Holyoke track and field team where she does sprints and throws the javelin. She is a Mount Holyoke Sarah Williston Scholar. She is also a member of the University of Massachusetts Steel bridge team and a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
Her motto in life is "Work as if all depends on you, pray as if all depends on God" which she learned from Loyola Jesuit College.