Dr. Iruka Okeke is Professor of Pharmaceutical Microbiology and a Calestous Juma Science Leadership Fellow at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Dr. Okeke is a Fellow of the Nigerian and African Academies of Science. Her research group uses microbiology, genetic and genomic methods to investigate the mechanisms bacteria use to colonize humans, cause disease and gain drug resistance. She also studies laboratory practice in Africa, contributes to collaborative genomic surveillance for antimicrobial resistance and communicates about microbiology to a broad range of stakeholders.
Dr. Okeke received B.Pharm., M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees from Obafemi Awolowo University (formerly University of Ife), Nigeria and post-doctoral training at the University of Maryland, USA, and Uppsala Universitet, Sweden. She has held Fulbright, International Federation for Science, Branco Weiss (Society-in-Science), Institute for Advanced Studies (Berlin) and MRC African Research Leader fellowships as well as academic positions in Nigeria, the UK, and the USA. Dr. Okeke is author/ co-author of several scientific articles and chapters as well as the books Divining Without Seeds: The case for strengthening laboratory medicine in Africa (Cornell Univ Press) and Genetics: Genes, Genomes and Evolution (Oxford Univ Press). A teacher scholar, she has mentored over a hundred research students, the majority of whom continue to work in science and health. Dr. Okeke is the 2023 recipient of the UK Microbiology Society’s Peter Wildy Award.