THIRD FEMALE PRESIDENT FOR GAAS (Demo)

THE GHANA ACADEMY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES ELECTS THIRD FEMALE PRESIDENT
FOR 2019 – 2020

The Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences on Thursday 17^th January 2019 inducted into office, the 37th Council to steer the affairs of the nation’s premier learned body for a two-year term; from January 2019 to December 2020. The election of the new officers took place earlier at the Academy’s 199th General Meeting of Fellows in December 2018.

The President of the new Council is Prof. Henrietta Joy Abena Nyarko Mensa-Bonsu, a Professor of Law, immediate past Director of the Legon Centre for International Affairs and Diplomacy; and former Deputy Special Representative (Rule of Law) to the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, for Liberia.

Prof. Mensa-Bonsu replaces Prof. Aba Bentil Andam, FGA; first recipient of the prestigious Chair for UNESCO Women in Science and Technology in Africa and Associate Professor at the School of Nuclear and Allied Sciences, University of Ghana, Legon, whose two-year tenure of office ended in December, 2018.

By her election, Prof. Henrietta Joy Abena Nyarko Mensa-Bonsu becomes the third woman ever to assume this high office of the Academy.

Fellows re-elected to assume the principal offices of the Academy are:

1. Kofi Anyidoho, Professor of Literature, Department of English and Director of the CODESRIA African Humanities Institute Programme at the University of Ghana, as Vice-President of the Arts Section;
2. Samuel K. Sefa-Dedeh, Professor of Food Science and Technology, Department of Food Process Engineering, School of Engineering Sciences, University of Ghana, Legon as Vice-President of the Sciences Section;
3. Ablade Glover, Founder and Director of the internationally acclaimed Artists Alliance Gallery as Honorary Treasurer;
4. Paa Kobina Turkson, Professor of Veterinary Epidemiology in the School of Veterinary Medicine, College of Basic and Applied Sciences, University of Ghana as Honorary Secretary

Six other members of the Council for 2019-2020 are:

1. Jonathan N. Ayertey, Professor of Entomology, Department of Crop Science, School of Agriculture, College of Basic and Applied Sciences, University of Ghana, Legon;
2. Kofi Opoku Nti; Independent Consultant and former Dean of the University of Ghana Business School, University of Ghana, Legon;
3. Professor Arthur Commey Sackeyfio, Founding Dean of the University of Ghana School of Pharmacy;
4. Professor Isabella Akyinbah Quakyi, Professor of Immunology and Parasitology and the Foundation Dean of the School of Public Health (SPH), College of Health Sciences, University of Ghana (UG) and a 2014 Laureate of the prestigious African Union Kwame Nkrumah Award for Women in Science;
5. Eugenia Date-Bah, Former Director, Crisis Response and Reconstruction InFocus (International Focus) Programme, International Labour Organisation (ILO)
6. Aba Bentil Andam, immediate past-president of the Academy.

The Academy is a learned society established by an Act of Parliament in 1959 to promote the study, the extension and the dissemination of knowledge of all the Arts and Sciences.  With a membership of 124 Fellows drawn from all fields of learning, the Academy has from its inception been charged with a key role in thought leadership and making inputs into policy making through research and evidence-based advice.