Ashesi University

Nana Oye Djan ’19 first stepped into research by asking whether biology could help make gold mining less harmful in Ghana.

As a Mechanical Engineering student at Ashesi, she joined the University’s first iGEM team in 2017. The experience took her beyond her discipline as she and her teammates learned biology, built equipment, and explored an engineered organism that could detect and measure gold in ore.

Years later, her research is focused on another environmental question: how are inland surface waters across sub-Saharan Africa changing, and what role is climate change playing?

Now a doctoral researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, Djan uses remote-sensing data to investigate these changes and help build evidence that can inform decisions around climate adaptation and mitigation.

Read Djan's story: ashe.si/4zW5zUx

We love seeing connections like these, and it’s great that you and @Benedict_Q are staying in touch @JeffDean. Come visit again soon!

While studying at Ashesi, Benedict Quartey ’18 worked with Dr. Ayorkor Korsah to develop RollE, an affordable, modular autonomous vehicle that allowed students and researchers to experiment with self-driving technology without expensive equipment. The project introduced him to research and helped set him on a path toward doctoral studies.

His work later expanded to speech technology for Ghanaian languages, including research resources that developers could use to build applications in Asante Twi, Akuapem Twi, Fante, and Ga.

Today, Quartey’s doctoral research at Brown University explores how robots can combine learned skills to carry out unfamiliar tasks. He has also co-founded Primordiant, a company developing robots that can observe, propose explanations, and run experiments.

Since building RollE at Ashesi, Quartey has continued to explore how technology can help people investigate problems and test ideas in new ways.

Read Quartey's story: ashe.si/3Wazkm2

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We’re LIVE!

Join us for the inaugural Ashesi Distinguished Lecture Series as Professor Ato Quayson explores The Stories We Live By: Africa’s Diverse Diasporas Through the Lens of Liberal Education.

Watch now: ashe.si/livestream

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David Darkwa '08 has spent his career exploring ways to make financial systems more accessible. He helped develop a platform that enabled people to withdraw cash from ATMs without a bank card, which was later deployed by multiple banks across West Africa. Earlier, his research at Microsoft Research India examined how people with limited literacy could use mobile money services more successfully.

His work has since expanded to financial inclusion for women and young people in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Zambia, as well as refugee finance through Mercy Corps in Uganda.

Across these projects, Darkwa looks beyond whether a technology works to whether people can access it, trust it, and find lasting value in using it.

Read Darkwa’s story: ashe.si/4iKlOyb

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