Dr. Gloria Osardu – If you have ever thought that age limits you in any way, then this post is for you.
Many must have discouraged her, mocked her or tried to stop her from achieving her dreams, but 27-year-old Gloria who is just getting started, persevered against all odds until she bagged her self a doctorate degree.
See ALso: Koniku Kore: Nigerian Invention That Smells Explosives and Cancer Cells
Dr. Gloria Opoku-Boateng Osardu, a US-based Ghanaian is a PhD Research Scientist at Northrop Grumman, a leading global aerospace and security company in the United States.
She is a Senior User Experience (UX) Research Scientist who does abstract research and design on concepts and theories that have not yet been implemented or applied.
27-year-old Dr Gloria Osardu recently made her PhD in Information Systems at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) with a dissertation research investigating brain fitness games as an intervention for the age-related cognitive decline in healthy older adults.
A rare feat yes, but the US-based Ghanaian strived to make herself one of the very few to achieve it.
See Also: GhanaSat 1: Everything About Ghana’s First Space Satellite
For achieving such great feat at such a young age Gloria was interviewed by Techpreneur Magazine on how she managed all the challenges that come with being a User Experience Research scientist (UX).
Gloria said she got motivated to choose UX when she was accepted into Johns Hopkins School of Medicine’s Applied Health Informatics program, where she studied the current state of Health IT in America, concerns, standards and federal regulations surrounding Health IT in America.
Towards the second year of her master’s degree, she was accepted into graduate school to work on an interdisciplinary PhD program where I can combine Human-Computer Interaction with Health IT.
Gloria proceeded to further her education in the US after completing her first degree at Valley View University. She came from a family which upholds excellence and hard work in academics.
Gloria who has a vast interest in technology and research worked with the likes of IBM, Google and other high profile tech companies as a User Experience (UX) Research Scientist.
Throughout her time at UMBC, Dr. Opoku-Boateng received scholarships and grants from IBM, Google, LinkedIn and Xerox, and participated in several conferences.
This included the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing, Healthcare Information, and Management Systems Society conference, AMIA conference for informatics professionals, engineering-focused Global Students Forum, and Latin American and Caribbean Conference for Engineering and Technology.
She grew up as a middle child of three girls as every other girl who had no idea of what they wanted to become. her parents played vital roles too in shaping her. Gloria and her sisters were encouraged to pursue college/grad school degrees and careers that fit their personality and choices.
The 27-year-old hopes to hold management position where she can combine her technical work with the managerial aspect.
Join GhanaStar.com to receive daily email alerts of breaking news in Ghana. GhanaStar.com is your source for all Ghana News. Get the latest Ghana news, breaking news, sports, politics, entertainment and more about Ghana, Africa and beyond.
