Spotlight on African Women In Science Mitigating the Effects of Climate Change: Dr Edem Mahu

Dr Mahu’s research pioneered the use of radioisotopes in reconstructing the pollution history of heavy metals in nearshore systems in the Gulf of Guinea over the last 150 to 200 years. She is currently the lead researcher of an OWSD funded project that is developing cheap and easily accessible android coupled soil nutrient test kits to guide fertilization application in farmlands around coastal water bodies in Ghana.

She is also leading research in toxicology funded by the IFS that seeks to evaluate ecological and human health risks associated with heavy metal pollution in coastal Ghana. She is a key research personnel on the GCRF funded project on Global Food Safety and ecosystem functioning implications of nano and micro-scale plastics in coastal Ghana. Dr Mahu is also the country coordinator of the NF-POGO Alumni Network global project on the observation of essential ocean parameters across the world.  She has been co-directing the Regional Coastal Ocean Environment Summer School in Ghana since 2016. She is a recipient of a number of prestigious awards and research fellowships including: an OWSD Early Career Fellowship; two (2) IFS) research grants; an H. Thomas Harvey Research Fellowship award and a California State University Council on Ocean Affairs, Science and Technology (CSU-COAST) award.

She is passionate about mentoring young girls into STEM programmes.

(Thia bio SOURCE: The African Academy of Science)