University of Ghana PhD candidate and Carnegie Next Generation of Academics in Africa scholarship beneficiary Kwabena Kan-Dapaah won an award for outstanding research at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) graduate research achievement day in Massachusetts, USA.
While visiting WPI at the recommendation of his supervisor Kan-Dapaah’s research in development of thermotherapy-based biomedical devices for cancer treatment was recognized as innovative and entered into the awards where he came second out of 66 PhD finalists. He is currently working on an implantable biomedical device for the treatment of breast cancer that will attack cancer cells while minimizing damage to healthy cells and tissue.
Kan-Dapaah is from the department of biomedical engineering at the University of Ghana and is currently working towards a PhD degree in Materials Science and Engineering from the African University of Science and Technology in Abuja Nigeria. As part of the scholarship, he also spent six months doing research at Princeton and Rutgers Universities in the United States. He says it has been a great experience so far.
“It has been a very productive and insightful experience seeing and being part of high level research and hopefully the opportunity will allow me to become relevant in my field of study” he said.
He says as part of the benefits of the award he is always welcome back at WPI for further research and he hopes his relationship with the institution will go a long way to benefit his students should he also recommend them for study.
He is expected to graduate in June 2015.