Sir Professor Alfred Babatunde Olaiya
SOBOYEJO is a full professor with tenure in the Department of Food,
Agricultural and Biological Engineering and Department of Mechanical and
Aerospace Engineering at The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, 43210. USA.
He has wide experience in teaching, research, and professional practices in
Civil, Structural, Agricultural, Mechanical, and Aerospace Engineering. He was
born in Lagos on March 7th 1938. He is now an US citizen living in
Columbus Ohio USA. He had excellence educational training in Civil and Structural
Engineering and Applied Mechanics at University of Landon and Stanford
University California USA from 1962 to 1965 where he graduated with MSc 1963,
CE 1965, and PhD 1965. He is eminently qualified as an engineer. He is a well-known
expert in application of statistics and probability methods to a wide range of
engineering problems and had produced useful and workable solutions to several
practical engineering problems.
Some of his achievements are
statistical and mathematical characterization of bone strength in animals,
particularly in the breeding of turkeys, broiler chicken and also bone strength
of astronauts after space explorations. His work had made possible useful
results of research in biological engineering and orthopaedical medicine in
cure of bone strength in osteoporosis in women.
He had contribution immensely to
engineering research in fatigue and fracture in aerospace materials and
structures. He has produced with others the largest data sets for fatigue and
fracture in titanium alloy used in design of aerospace materials in the elimination
of failure due to fatigue and fracture in aircraft structures.
He believes that Nigerian Engineers can
make immense contributions to the improvement of social and economic development
of Nigeria. Good ideas are available in Nigeria all that we need are funding
and encouragement from our national leaders to promote research and development
in agricultural practices to feed our large population and also use agriculture
to earn foreign exchange for Nigeria. We have rich soil in Nigeria and a lot
rainfall particularly in the southern part of the country. Therefore, there should
be no foot shortage in Nigeria. If more Nigerian are encouraged and assisted to
practice agriculture, unemployment among the young graduate will decrease
immensely. All projects of Nigeria which Nigeria will pay for should have to use
Nigeria engineers to do engineering for the development of Nigeria. The use of foreign
engineers should only be done when no Nigerian engineer can do the job. The
areas where Nigerian engineers can work are as follows water supply and
distribution, structure engineering, design and maintenance of central swage
system, transportation engineering, design production and maintenance of
electric energy for homes and industries, and other services and structures.
The future is very great for Nigeria. A lot need to be done, we need assistant
and support of our leaders to help Nigeria engineers to contribute more
significantly to Nigeria development in the years that lay ahead.
