Dr. Patrick Essien is currently working with AIMS Ghana on the Climate Change and Atmospheric Physics Program. This program focuses on the research and education of young African scientists to develop models locally to support the global effort of understanding the climate system, climate projections and Climate Change Resilience practices. He has taught Atmospheric Physics at AIMS Cameroon and AIMS Senegal in the 2021 academic year.

Dr. Essien holds a Ph.D. in Space Geophysics from the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) in Brazil, where he doubled as the assistant scientist for the space weather program. His research interests focus on the effects of space weather and atmospheric/ionospheric conditions on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) such as GPS, GLONASS etc. and their applications. He as well works on the neutral atmospheric process or disturbances and their impact on the climate system.

He received numerous scientific awards during his academic years including; Max Hammond Student Award for the best abstract and project to present his Ph.D. work orally during American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference in 2019 in San Francisco; best oral presentation during 2018 international COSPAR Capacity building workshop on space weather in Brazil, and the best scientist of the month (May, 2020) by African Geophysical Society (AGS). He has a number of published articles in various international journals to his credit.

He is a member of American Geophysical Union, European Geophysical Union, African Geophysical Society, Brazilian Symposium on Space Geophysics and Aeronomy and Ghana Institute of Physics. He is the former national point of contact to Ghana for the Space Generation Advisory Council. Among others, Dr Essien the first foreigner to become the President of the Postgraduate Students of the National Institute for Space Research. He also dedicates a lot of time to community service and the motivation of young people.