Hi all, I hope you had a good weekend? Since it was Thanksgiving, I am sure you all had a good amount of food and celebration to last you till Christmas yea? As you know, every Monday, I feature Top 2 Cameroonian movers and shakers. If you follow me on social media, I recently posted 2 articles on our top 2 for today. I am so excited to share these two people with you all. I don't know them, I wish I did :). Nonetheless, they have had some great accomplishments. They are Imbolo Mbue and Dr. Wilfred Ndifon.
"Cameroonian scientist Dr. Wilfred Ndifon has proposed a solution to a 70-year old immunological mystery relating to the original antigenic sin. this complex problem has played havoc with efforts to fight infectious diseases" (read complete article here). Dr. Wilfred Ndifon is an expert in the application of both immunology and mathematics to the study of mechanisms and dynamics of infectious diseases. He received his PhD degree in biological dynamics in 2009 from Princeton University and subsequently did postdoctoral studies in the department of immunology at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. Mr Ndifon is also the founder of the International Institute for Computational and Systems Immunology in Yaounde. Mr. Ndifon began his career at the University of Buea, where he majored in Computer Science and Mathematics, with a minor in Physics. He has received fellowships and has been published, including:The Burroughs-Welcome Training Fellow in Biological Dynamics and published in journals such as PLoS Computational Biology and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the USA. He has also presented at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, USA, University College London, UK, and other academic institutions. He is currently a researcher at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences as well as,2015 Next Einstein Fellow, where he"hopes to discover and use the immune system’s organizing principles to develop a probabilistic theory — akin to a quantum mechanics — that would allow many aspects of the system’s structure and functioning to be deduced from first principles".
If you are a literary fanatic, then you may have heard of news last year on the most expensive African fiction manuscript,being bought by Random House Publishing? Well, The one and only author is Imbolo Mbue. Raised in Limbe, Cameroon, then later on relocated to the US, she holds a BS from Rutgers University and an MA from Columbia University. Her novel Behold The Dreamers will be her first published novel to be release next year. You can pre-order via Amazon here. Prior to that, her first published work was submitted to Threepenny review Dec. 2014. It is called “Emke” "It is a melancholy account documenting the last days of a man dying of a wasting disease". Mrs. Mbue is quite an inspiration to young writers who aren't sure about their work. Sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith. African writers are making waves globally and I am extremely happy to see a Cameroonian in the midst. May I add, she is doing it effortlessly with that glowing skin and powerful natural hair!
As a sign of respect in my culture, we call our male elders uncles and female elders auntie. With that said, Uncle Ndifor is the epitome of hard work pays off. Cameroon shells out intelligent people. I should know I am one of them ;) also, my cousin is one of them. Auntie Imbolo makes me want to confidently write the stories I have,roaming through my brain. I hope you guys are as inspired by these two as I am.
Xoxo
Kesh
Content and images courtesy of BrittlePaper, Threepenny, AIMS, Next Einstein Forum, Quartz Africa
Kesh
Content and images courtesy of BrittlePaper, Threepenny, AIMS, Next Einstein Forum, Quartz Africa