Professor Selected for Groundwater Research Fellowship in Nigeria

Earth and Environmental Studies Professor Duke Ophori has been selected for the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program (CADFP) and will travel to Nigeria in June to work with the Federal University of Petroleum Resources, Effurun (FUPRE) for research collaboration and graduate student training in the school’s Department of Geology.

The project, “Curriculum Co-Development/Mentoring Graduate Students: A Short Course on Groundwater Modeling and Petroleum Hydrogeology,” will have Ophori developing a curriculum for groundwater and contaminant transport modeling.

Over the course of five weeks, Ophori will teach, train and mentor 20 master’s and doctoral students who are practicing hydrogeologists, petroleum engineers, civil and environmental engineers, groundwater professionals, water resources managers, geologists and hydrologists.

The goal of the project – and the CADFP program – is to create capacity building for young scientists in Nigeria who will be tasked with the investigation, management and protection of groundwater and petroleum resources. Mentoring of these students will carry on over the next five years.

Ophori says he feels “ecstatically happy to be selected” for the program.

“[It] keys in perfectly with the yearnings of many African youths for beneficial technology transfer from the United States. This is an avenue for academic and professional growth that is highly needed in Africa today,” Ophori says. “I hope to start up a group of young scientists, engineers and other professionals that will develop this research area to a high degree.”

Now in its tenth year, the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program, funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and managed by the Institute of International Education (IIE) in collaboration with the Association of African Universities (AAU), was created to strengthen and develop long-term and mutually beneficial collaborations between universities in Africa and the United States and Canada.

African institutions in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda host an African-born scholar to work on projects in research collaboration, graduate student teaching/mentoring and curriculum co-development.

Since 2013, the program has awarded nearly 600 African Diaspora Fellowships for African-born scholars to travel to Africa.

For more information about Montclair’s ​​Earth and Environmental Studies program, visit montclair.edu/earth-and-environmental-studies.