Prof Kwabena Doku-Amponsah is a distinguished scholar, holding the distinction of being the first Professor of Stochastic Analysis(Probability Theory) from a Ghanaian University and the inaugural Professor of Mathematical Sciences, College of Basic and Applied Sciences, University of Ghana. He was born on February 27, 1973, in Battor, North Tongu, Volta Region, to Sese Afua Assor(deceased), an Asona royal of Akyem Abompeh-Osino, and Mr. Edmond Yao Amponsah (deceased). His paternal ancestry traces back to Osino-Akyem through his late grandfather, Mr. Rexford Jonathan Doku. His paternal grandmother, the late Madam Janet Oboshie Wormade, was the daughter of Mamavi Gbagbatey Wormade (deceased) of Agave Adutor and Togbe Akpli I(deceased) of Dzebetato, near Sogakope in the Volta Region. At the time of his birth, his father worked as an Irrigation Development Officer at the Aveyime Irrigation Project.
Doku-Amponsah is the youngest of three children, and the only son of his mother, Sese Assor. His surname, "Doku," was chosen by his father, who believed that history was repeating itself after a series of miscarriages and male-child mortality in the family, a situation that mirrored his paternal great-grandmother’s experiences. She was sent to a god in the Shai-Osu Doku area before she could give birth to a male child.
During his early years, Doku-Amponsah lived with his mother, a Bofrot seller, in Yamossou-Krou, Ivory Coast, where he began his Kindergarten education due to some disagreements between his parents. At the age of five, he returned to Battor to live with his father, where he started his primary education. Despite being younger than the required age for primary 1, his father home-schooled him in oral history of the Akyem and Agave for six months before enrolling him at Battor Roman Catholic Primary School in 1978. In 1979, when his father moved to Aveyime, Kwabena continued his education at Aveyime Methodist Primary School, advancing from primary 2 to 4. Subsequent transfers took him to Tokuse LA Primary School in Machengeni (now Kasoa Amanfrom) in 1984 and Tanoso LA Middle School in 1986 when his father was transferred to the Tanoso Irrigation Project.
In 1988, Kwabena successfully passed the late entrance exam for Osino Secondary School (OSSEC) and enrolled that same year. Throughout his lower secondary education, he excelled in Mathematics, although his favorite subjects were History and Literature. In 1991, his father requested a transfer for him from OSSEC to Techiman Secondary School so that he could pursue his dream of studying Medicine (Plastic Surgery), as OSSEC did not offer Science subjects (Physics, Chemistry, Biology) at the O'Level. However, tragedy struck when his father passed away during the long vacation of the 1990-1991 academic year. After his father's death, Kwabena returned to OSSEC to complete his Form 5 education, where he studied English, Mathematics, Principles of Accounting, Geography, Economics, Agricultural Science, Arts, and Additional Mathematics. Notably, he was one of the only Two (2) remaining student in Additional Mathematics after most of his peers dropped out. Life was challenging for him, as his mother was barely earning enough from her petty trading in Abompe. As a result, she had to sell two of her clothes for GHS 4 to pay for his O'Level registration and buy a calculator for his final exams. Despite these hardships, he obtained a distinction (Aggregate 10) in seven subjects at the O'Level: English 5, Principles of Accounting 3, Additional Mathematics 3, Mathematics 1, Geography 1, Economics 1, and Agricultural Science 1. He did not take the Arts (drawing) papers due to insufficient tuition in the theoretical aspect of the subject.
Kwabena completed his Sixth Form education at St. Augustine's College (AUGUSCO) in Cape Coast, where he studied Mathematics, Geography, Economics, and General Paper for his A'Level exams between 1993 and 1995. He won the first prize in Economics at the 1995 Speech and Prize-Giving ceremony. Despite facing challenges during his final exams, including stress and limited financial support, he achieved grades of B in Mathematics and General Paper, and C in Economics and Geography. Nonetheless, he was admitted to the University of Ghana to pursue a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science. After his second year, he dropped Computer Science and graduated with a Second Class Upper Division in Mathematics and Statistics. His excellence in Mathematics courses during his second year earned him recognition, with the Head of Department, Professor Daniel Afedzi Akyeampong, posting his name on the notice board as one of the few students selected for a single major in Mathematics.
After completing his Bachelor’s degree studies, he undertook his national service at the University of Ghana's Department of Mathematics, where he taught general mathematics to medical students under the supervision of the Dr. Margaret McIntyre, the Head of Department. He later received partial funding to study at the University of Kaiserslautern, Germany, where he completed an MSc in Financial Mathematics and emerged as the best student in the 2001-2003 cohort. His MSc Dissertation (On exotic options in the martingale problem model) was Supervised by Prof. Dr. Heinrich von Weizsäcker. During this period, he was awarded a full scholarship to pursue a Ph.D. in the Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Bath, UK, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Peter Mörters, who happened to be a Ph.D mentee of Prof. Dr. Weizsäcker and completed his dissertation on "Large Deviation and Basic Information Theory for Hierarchical and Networked Data Structures" in August 2006.
Kwabena returned to Ghana in 2007 and began his academic career as a lecturer in the Department of Statistics at the University of Ghana. He rose through the ranks to become a Senior Lecturer in 2014, Associate Professor in 2018, and Professor of Probability Theory and Mathematical Statistics in 2022. He made history as the first person to attain the rank of Professor (full) in the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science at the University of Ghana since its establishment in 1948.
His research interests span Stochastic Analysis (Probability Theory) and Mathematical Statistics. In Stochastic Analysis, he focuses on increasingly rare events associated with random structures, such as random graphs. Specifically, his work involves encoding the features of these random structures into random finite measures and using large deviation techniques, establish their asymptotic behavior as the probability of events decaying on an exponential scale. He began publishing quality paper in this area when he was a student. A few of these papers are “Large deviation principles for empirical measures of colored random graphs’’ submitted to the Annals of Applied probability October 2006 .and published 2010, and “Asymptotic equipartition properties for simple hierarchical and networked structures” submitted to ESAIM: Probability and Statistics June 19, 2009 and published June 9, 2010, and “Joint large deviation result for empirical measures of the coloured random geometric graphs” submitted to the SpingerPlus January 7, 2016 and published July 20,2016
In the field of Mathematical Statistics, he has developed innovative methodologies for studying extreme events within Extreme Value Theory. His contributions include proposing reduced-bias estimators, deriving their asymptotic properties, evaluating their finite sample behavior through simulation studies, and applying them to estimate the tail index of Pareto-type distributions. His practical applications involve modeling claims from the Ghanaian insurance industry and analyzing the water levels of the Akosombo Dam. He has co-authored high-quality papers with two of his mentees in this domain. Notable publications include “Estimation of the Tail Index of Pareto-Type Distributions Using Regularisation,” submitted to the Journal of Mathematics on May 2, 2022, and published on October 27, 2022, and “Reduced-bias Weighted Least Square Estimation of the Extreme Value Index,” submitted to the Journal of Statistics and Management Systems on December 2, 2021, was published on December 18, 2024. In addition, he and a co-researcher developed a marginalized model for zero-inflated univariate count outcomes in the presence of overdispersion, published as “Statistical Model for Overdispersed Count Outcomes with Many Zeros: An Approach for Marginal Inference” in the South African Statistical Journal (2016). His most recent research paper in this area is titled “An Approximate Distribution of the Elemental Regression Weights with t-Distributed Covariate Measurement Errors.”
His research has produced several other significant contributions, including forecasting mortality rates, modeling longevity risk, and analyzing stock prices of companies listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange. These scholarly works have been published in prestigious African and international journals, reinforcing his status as a leading expert in his field. Notable journals include the Journal of Information and Optimization Sciences, Calcutta Statistical Association Bulletin, Journal of Applied Mathematics, Scientific African, South East Asian Journal of Mathematics and Mathematical Sciences, and the African Journal of Applied Statistics.
Throughout his career, Professor Doku-Amponsah has significantly impacted students through thesis supervision, guiding around 10 MSc, 22 MPhil, and 11 PhD students. Among his MSc and MPhil students are Dr. Eric Nyarko (University of Ghana), Dr. G. Kallah-Dagadu (University of Ghana), Dr. George A. Marfo (Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology), Dr. T. Narh-Ansah (Ghana Atomic Energy Commission), Dr. Crystal Bubune Letsa, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Ghana, Mr. F.F. Agyarko (CSIR, Ghana), and Dr. I. Akoto (University of Energy and Natural Resources, Sunyani, Ghana).
His PhD mentees include Prof. Richard Minkah, Dr. Dennis Arku, Dr. Eric Ocran, Dr. Enoch Sakyi-Yeboah, Dr. B. Mbeah-Baiden, Dr. Charlotte Chapman-Wardy, Dr. Ernest Somua-Wiafe and Dr. Issah Seidu (all from the University of Ghana), Dr. Alhassan Faisal (University of Development Studies, Navrongo, Ghana), Dr. Charle Kwofie (University of Energy and Natural Resources, Sunyani), and Dr. Ernest Yeboah Boateng (University of Allied Health Sciences, Ho, Ghana). He has served as an examiner for Ph.D. theses at universities including the University of Johannesburg, the University of South Africa, and the University of Zimbabwe, as well as an assessor for promotions at multiple Ghanaian institutions.
In addition to his academic responsibilities at the University of Ghana, Prof. Doku-Amponsah is actively involved in examination and assessment roles for professional bodies and educational institutions, both nationally and internationally. To highlight a few examples of his extensive contributions, he has served as an Examiner/Chief Examiner for the Institute of Chartered Accountants Ghana's quantitative tools in business paper. Presently, he holds the role of an examiner for the quantitative methods paper at the Chartered Institute of Bankers, Ghana. Additionally, he plays an active role on the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission's panels, specifically in overseeing Statistics and Actuarial Science programmes. Furthermore, he serves as an external assessor and examiner for numerous universities across Ghana and Africa, including but not limited to the University of South Africa, the University of Zimbabwe, and the University of Johannesburg. He also acts as an assessor for institutions such as the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission, the University of Energy and Natural Resources, the University of Development Studies, the University of Health Sciences, University of Cape Coast, Kumasi Technical University, and the School of Public Health at the University of Ghana.
Doku-Amponsah has presented his research work in many international conferences and workshops. He is a respected member of professional associations such as the Ghana Statistical Association and the American Mathematical Association, further demonstrating his commitment to advancing his discipline. He currently teaches probability and statistics courses at AIMS Ghana and has served as a guest lecturer at the Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College in Teshie-Accra on several occasions. Additionally, Prof. Doku-Amponsah has held visiting scholar positions at Technical University of Berlin in Germany and University of Environment and Sustainable Development in Somanya, Ghana.