As part of its 10-year anniversary celebration under the theme: Developing versatile and innovative STEM leaders for Africa’s scientific excellence and socio-economic development, AIMS Ghana has instituted an annual public lecture in honor of the late Professor Francis Allotey who founded the institute and this event will be scheduled for August 9th every year.
In collaboration with the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Ministry of Education, this year’s Public Lecture will bring together participants from academia and research, policy, donor and philanthropy community, industry, civil society, and the general public to learn about new and emerging scientific solutions that are used to address key national and global problems. It will also be a platform to exchange and discuss ideas with respect to scientific and technological solutions in addressing Ghana’s developmental problems and promoting economic growth.
Hon. Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, Minister for Education will deliver the keynote address for this maiden public lecture.
Speaker Profiles
Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell is an astrophysicist from Northern Ireland who, as a postgraduate student, discovered the first radio pulsars in 1967. The discovery eventually earned the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1974; however, she was not one of the prize’s recipients. In 2018, she was awarded the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. Following the announcement of the award, she decided to use the $3 million (£2.3 million) prize money to establish a fund to help female, minority and refugee students become physics researchers.
Bell Burnell was president of the Royal Astronomical Society from 2002 to 2004, president of the Institute of Physics from October 2008 until October 2010, and interim president of the Institute following the death of her successor, Marshall Stoneham, in early 2011. In 2021, Bell Burnell became the second female recipient (after Dorothy Hodgkin in 1976) of the Copley Medal.
Lecture Topic: Bursts, bangs and things that go bump in the night – the new field of time-domain astronomy
Neil Turok is the Founder and Board Chair of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS), a Pan-African institute for developing brilliant young Africans in the area of Mathematics founded in 2003 in Cape Town, South Africa. AIMS has since expanded to a network of five nodes with Centres in South Africa, Senegal, Ghana, Cameroon, and Rwanda – and has become Africa’s most renowned institution for postgraduate training in mathematical science.
For his scientific discoveries and work, which include founding and developing AIMS, Prof. Turok was awarded a TED Prize in 2008. He has also been recognized with many awards worldwide. Neil Turok currently serves as the Higgs Chair of Theoretical Physics at the University of Edinburgh.
Lecture Topic: The universe and what it is teaching us
The event will be held at the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences Auditorium at 3:00 PM GMT.
It will also be streamed online via Zoom, YouTube, and Facebook Live.
Register to attend the event HERE.
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