Meet Our Speakers
Olusola F. Sotunde PhD
Dr Olusola Sotunde is a trained nutrition and dietetic professional. Over the course of her career, she has practiced as a dietitian, nutritionist, lecturer and researcher in various capacities and specialities. She obtained her M.Sc. Nutrition and Dietetics from the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta where she investigated the relationship between maternal health profile and weight gained in pregnancy on the viability of the pregnancy outcome in a referral Obstetrics and Gynecology hospital in Lagos State, Nigeria. She obtained her PhD in Dietetics from North West University, South Africa where she investigated the role of urbanization in increasing adiposity; associations between lean mass, fat mass and bone health; and association between vitamin D and the metabolic syndrome in black South African adults. Sola worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at University of South Africa, on the Nutrition in Pregnancy and Early Development study, assessing dietary intake and nutritional status of urban pregnant women in Johannesburg, South Africa to determine associations with birth outcomes, maternal and offspring health. She completed another postdoctoral fellowship at McGill University, Canada where she investigated the long-term response of lean and fat mass to vitamin D interventions in neonates and paternal epigenetic inheritance with emphasis on impact of nutritional status and dietary intake on the sperm epigenome and reproductive outcomes. Sola is presently the Senior Technical Advisor for Nutrition and Health at Beth Davids International. She is an alumnus of the African Nutrition Leadership Programme and an enthusiastic advocate for the scaling up of nutrition-sensitive interventions for improved health outcomes of pregnant women, infants, children and vulnerable adults. She has authored peer reviewed publications in high impact scientific journals and has presented her work at various conferences.
Mercy Sosanya
Mercy Sosanya is a PhD candidate in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin. She is currently a recipient of an International Peace Scholarship of the PEO Foundation. She is a Fellow of TechWomen, a program of the US Department of State. She is also an International Fellow of the American Association of University Women. Mercy previously chaired the Nutrition and Dietetics Department of the Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi in Nigeria.
Her research focuses on investigating the multidimensional determinants of undernutrition and food insecurity, as well as designing culturally appropriate interventions to ameliorate undernutrition in rural communities in Nigeria. Using indigenous foods and resources, she has formulated ready-to-use therapeutic foods and other products, which have been displayed at national educational exhibitions in Nigeria. Mercy has initiated and implemented several initiatives to inspire female involvement in STEM. She has also led community outreaches to improve the nutritional status of women and children in northern Nigeria. She is presently developing a mobile gaming app aimed at improving the infant and young child feeding practices of teenage mothers, and the nutritional status of their children (0 – 2 years) in Nigeria. Mercy is married to Adewole, and they have three daughters, OreOmo, Tobanimi and EniOlufe.
