Long earlier than a tumour turns into seen on a scan, or signs sends a affected person dashing to hospital, there are faint organic alerts that one thing is incorrect. These alerts are so small that at this time’s medical instruments typically miss them.
This largely unseen frontier is the place Temitope Adeniyi’s work is concentrated.
The Nigerian-born quantum scientist and researcher, based mostly in the United States (US), has emerged as the solely Nigerian on UNESCO’s checklist of 100 world honourees for the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology. She is being recognised for her work on quantum sensors designed to detect life-threatening ailments at their earliest, most treatable phases. As she places it, her objective is “to detect diseases long before they become life-threatening”.
If profitable, her analysis may reshape how sicknesses akin to most cancers are recognized, affect the subsequent technology of hospital diagnostic instruments, and open new pathways for African participation in the fast-growing quantum know-how business. More broadly, it positions Nigeria and Africa inside the superior science and know-how area that’s anticipated to outline the subsequent century.
Qunatum computing’s impression is finest understood by way of medication. Many ailments, together with cancers, start at microscopic ranges that standard instruments battle to detect early. Adeniyi’s work goals to develop ultra-sensitive quantum sensors able to choosing up the faintest organic alerts.
Unlike classical computer systems, which processes data utilizing bits which are both 0 or 1, quantum computer systems use quantum bits, or qubits, which may exist in a number of states without delay. This permits them to unravel sure issues far quicker than at this time’s strongest computer systems, issues that would take classical machines 1000’s of years.
Beyond the UNESCO honour, Adeniyi acquired the Femtum leap award for rising quantum stars at the quantum innovation summit in Dubai in January 2024. She was additionally chosen for the feminine science abilities intensive monitor by the Falling Walls Foundation in Germany, a programme that selected simply 20 scientists worldwide from 629 candidates.
Currently a analysis assistant at Cleveland state college, she helped develop the establishment’s first-ever quantum computing course, which is now embedded in the curriculum. She has additionally co-developed and taught quantum machine studying programs, whereas introducing quantum computing and synthetic intelligence (AI) ideas to highschool college students throughout the metropolitan district.
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From Osun state to the world
Adeniyi hails from Ijebu-Ijesa in Osun State. Born in Lagos and raised in Ibadan, Oyo State, she grew up in a house the place studying was a part of on a regular basis life. Her father was a lecturer, whereas her mom ran a major faculty. During faculty holidays, instructing youthful pupils was not non-obligatory for the youngsters however a routine for her.
“I have been teaching since I was a child,” she recollects. “My parents made learning a lifestyle.”
Ironically, science was not her past love. As a toddler, she was drawn to artwork and drawing and imagined a future as an artist. But after junior secondary faculty, she was positioned in the science class, in opposition to her needs, largely as a result of her household seen her energy in arithmetic and analytical reasoning.
The actual turning level got here throughout a protracted college strike, when her elder brother, then an engineering scholar at Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), returned house. Over a number of months, he taught her science utilizing tales and songs.
“That experience changed everything,” she says. “I fell in love with science, especially Physics.”
She went on to excel academically, ending secondary faculty at simply 14 and finally learning Physics with Electronics at Osun state college. Despite warnings that physics graduates typically “end up as teachers”, she stayed the course, pushed by real ardour.
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Falling into computing, and discovering quantum science
While pursuing a PhD in Physics at the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), after her Masters diploma, Adeniyi found computing. She discovered programming languages akin to Java and Python, explored AI, robotics and machine studying, and started looking for a discipline that would deliver collectively her pursuits in physics, arithmetic and computation.
That search led her to quantum computing. “Quantum computing blends physics, mathematics and computing,” Adeniyi explains. “For me, it was a perfect fit.”
She started learning the discipline independently by way of on-line programs, hackathons and summer time faculties, whereas persevering with her PhD research in Nigeria. An opportunity encounter on LinkedIn with a US-based tutorial trying for somebody with expertise in quantum computing, AI and instructing modified the trajectory of her profession.
In January 2023, she relocated to the US in January 2023.
Breaking obstacles in the United States
At Cleveland state college in Ohio, Adeniyi enrolled as a PhD scholar in Computer Science and started conducting superior analysis in quantum computing. Like many African girls in elite scientific areas, she initially battled impostor syndrome.
“Being African and female made me doubt myself,” she admits.
Those doubts quickly light. Her intensive self-study meant she was not solely maintaining however, in some areas, forward. She labored as a analysis assistant, making use of AI to fine-tune sensing units, and gained early entry to a quantum pc linked to healthcare analysis which is a uncommon alternative.
Her analysis now focuses on developing quantum algorithms utilizing AI, enhancing quantum methods akin to sensors, and advancing quantum machine studying. She additionally applies AI to inhabitants well being informatics in collaboration with a hospital.
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Building Africa’s quantum future
In 2024, Adeniyi joined forces with colleagues to revive and relaunch the African Quantum Consortium, which formally launched in January 2025. She now serves as programme lead.
The consortium brings collectively researchers, policymakers, college students and innovators from throughout Africa to advance quantum science on the continent. It already has illustration from 23 African international locations, has awarded fellowships to greater than 20 college students, and is operating a pan-African quantum hackathon with individuals from 22 international locations.
Through partnerships with world know-how companies akin to IBM, the initiative offers African abilities with entry to quantum assets and pathways into the world quantum business.
“Our goal is to ensure Africa is not just a consumer of quantum technology, but an active contributor,” she says.
Looking homeward
Although she is not sure when she is going to return completely to Nigeria, Adeniyi is obvious about her long-term imaginative and prescient: to ascertain a world-class deep-tech analysis institute in Nigeria as a result of in line with her, “Accolades are not the end goal. I believe strongly in giving back,” she says.
“I want it to be the biggest deep-tech research institute in Africa; one that is equipped with quantum computers, robotics, space technology and resources that public universities currently lack, while working in partnership with them”, she says.
From a toddler who wished to be an artist to a UNESCO-honoured quantum scientist, Temitope Adeniyi embodies a brand new technology of Nigerians in the diaspora, globally revered, regionally rooted, and decided to make sure that Nigeria has a spot in shaping the applied sciences of the future.
