Esi Awuah

Esi Awuah is Ghana’s Ambassador to Switzerland, an academic and former vice chancellor of the University of Energy and Natural Resources in Sunyani, Ghana.

Early life and education Esi Awuah is the eldest child of Emmanuel Broni Asare and Margaret Annan. Her father is from Akim Oda in the Eastern Region of Ghana, and served as the Deputy Chief Conservator of Forestry in the Ashanti and Brong-Ahafo regions. Her mother, Margaret Annan, is a retired nurse's aid is from the village of Gomoa Dago in Ghana. Awuah completed her ordinary-level education at Akim Oda in 1973 and finished her advanced-level education at Aburi Girls' Secondary School in 1975. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Biological Sciences from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), her Masters in Environmental Science at SUNY ESF Syracuse in the USA and her PhD in Wastewater treatment at Wageningen University /UNESCO-IHE Delft Netherlands.

After completing her national service at the Forest Products Research Institute in Kumasi (now the Forestry Research Institute of Ghana). Awuah took a job as a research assistant at the Department of Civil Engineering. In 1981, she obtained a World Health Organization scholarship to study environmental sciences in the United States at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York. In 1998, she was awarded a fellowship from the Dutch government to pursue a PhD in waste-water treatment at the Institute of Infrastructural, Hydraulic, and Environmental Engineering (now UNESCO-IHE) at Delft in the Netherlands.

Career Awuah began her academic career at KNUST in 1986 at the Department of Civil Engineering. She became a senior lecturer in 1996, an associate professor in 2002, and applied for full professorship in 2008 and completing in 2014.

Awuah has taught courses at KNUST, the University of Cape Coast, and the University of Education, Winneba, for both the undergraduate and graduate levels. She has also developed curricula in several disciplines used to establish academic programs in Ghana and Liberia.

As a researcher with special interests in water supply, sanitation, waste water treatment, hygiene, and environmental risk assessment, Awuah supervised several water-quality analysis projects to raise awareness about pollution in urban streams and ground water contamination from onsite sanitation systems. Her research developments include weighting systems for impact assessment of water developments in Ghana and arsenic removal from ground water using local materials. Other focus areas include major pathogen removal mechanisms in waste stabilization ponds, the role of arsenic in Buruli ulcers as well as environmental practices and risk factors associated with the disease, risk factors associated with waste-water use in agriculture, the role of arsenic and health impacts associated with charcoal production and food vendor hygiene.

Awuah has more than 100 publications to her credit in refereed journals, conference papers, environmental reports, and book chapters. She was also recognized in 2008 by the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development in Ghana during the international year of sanitation. In 2011, she received the silver award for best research in the area of environment, water, and sanitation, during the first National Science Congress in Ghana.

Personal life Awuah attends the Mount Zion Methodist Church in Kotei, Kumasi, where she is an organist and choir member. She is married to R. T. Awuah, a plant pathologist and former principal of the College of Agriculture at the University of Education, Winneba (Ashanti Mampong Campus), and former dean of the Faculty of Agriculture at KNUST. The couple have two sons, Ato and Kobbina.