Sofiat Olaosebikan

Sofiat Olaosebikan is at the final stage of her doctoral research in Computing Science at the University of Glasgow (UofG). She is supported by a College of Science and Engineering Scholarship at UofG. In a nutshell, her research involves employing tools from mathematics and computer science to design efficient algorithms for matching problems. Examples of which include allocating kidneys to transplant patients, or assigning junior doctors to hospitals. She completed her undergraduate studies in Mathematics at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria. Subsequently, she was offered a full scholarship at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Ghana, which was where she obtained her masters. 
As much as Sofiat enjoys using her computing and mathematics skills to solve real-world problems, she is even more passionate about using her skills to help those that do not have the same opportunity she had. One of her goals is to raise an army of intellectuals that will contribute to the development of Africa on the frontiers of science and technology. She hope to achieve this by building bridges between Universities in Africa and abroad, with an aim to strengthen the capacity of Africans in terms of research and computing skills. 
In 2018, she started the Programming Workshop for Scientists in Africa (PWSAfrica) initiative, to empower African scientists with computer programming skills. Ever since then, over 200 students and staff from various STEM departments in Nigeria and Rwanda have benefited from her Python programming workshops. Sofiat and her team have plans to travel to Africa in 2020 to run another workshop. In recognition of the significance of PWSAfrica, she was named as a Future World Changer by UofG.
Her website is <www.sofiatolaosebikan.com>, and you can follow her on Twitter @soolaosebikan.