Dr Sheila Ochugboju is an international development professional with over 15 years experience, working in Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria. She is also the co-founder and Director of a Knowledge Management and Media Consultancy called Africa Knows.
She is currently based in the UK as a Specialist Facilitator on the Extreme Dialogue project, managed by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, which aims to build resilience to radicalisation among young people through a series of open-access educational resources and highly engaging short films that foster critical thinking and digital literacy skills. Extreme Dialogue encourages safe, constructive discussions around extremism and radicalisation in educational or community settings in the UK, Canada, Germany and Hungary.
Sheila has been a consultant for various UN agencies and recently completed the Knowledge Management analyses for the UNDP REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, plus conservation) National Strategy in Nigeria, with focus on Cross River State. She was also Lead Researcher for the UNHabitat 2015/2016, Global State of Urban Youth Report (GSUYR), focusing on Youth Inequality in 18 countries across Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
In 2015 she was recognised as a committed advocate for community empowerment with her appointment as an Honorary Ambassador for the County Government of Kisumu, Kenya, with a portfolio for Transformative Science & Urban Resilience. And in October 2016, she received the Women of Discovery Humanity award from the Wings World Quest Foundation in New York. She is also a TED Fellow and Co-Curator of TEDxNairobi.
Sheila received her PhD in Plant Biochemistry from Royal Holloway, London University. This was followed by the Daphne Jackson Trust Post Doctoral Research Fellowship at St Hilda’s College, Oxford (1998-2000), conducting research into novel baculoviruses at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH-Oxford).