Nature Award for Mentoring in Science 2024 celebrates individuals in West Africia who contribute significantly to guiding and shaping the careers of emerging researchers

The 2024 award recognises Andrew Prentice and Adesola Ogunniyi for lifetime achievements and Oluwatoyin Adepeju Odeku for mid-career achievement.

Abuja | London | Berlin, 12 December 2024

Celebrating outstanding support and mentorship in science, the 2024 Nature Award for Mentoring in Science has been awarded to Andrew Major Prentice, Adesola Ogunniyi and Oluwatoyin Adepeju Odeku. The 2024 award focused on mentors in West Africa, with the recipients being honoured at a ceremony in Abuja, Nigeria.

The award for lifetime achievement was awarded jointly to:

• Adesola Ogunniyi, professor at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Through his mentorship, for example, he encouraged a former mentee to pursue a successful research career, which has seen them win the 2021 World Stroke Organization Global Award for Outstanding Contributions to Clinical Stroke Research.
• Andrew Prentice, Theme Leader for Nutrition & Planetary Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine,The Gambia. His mentorship inspired a former mentee to devise and manage a research programme focused on nutrition-related chronic diseases, particularly focusing on hypertension, diabetes, obesity and multimorbidity.

The award from mid-career achievement was awarded to:

• Oluwatoyin Adepeju Odeku, Professor of Pharmaceutics at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. As a result of her mentorship, one of her mentees has gone on to win several academic awards including: The Postdoctoral fellowship of the American Association of University Women (AAUW), and The Association of Commonwealth Universities Early Career Academic Grants Award.

Speaking on this year's award, Magdalena Skipper, Editor-in-Chief, Nature said:

"Good mentors can be instrumental to establishing a successful and fulfilling research career. Sadly, excelling at mentorship is rarely recognised or rewarded. That's why I am so proud of our annual Nature Awards for mentoring in science. The 2024 focus on West Africa allows us to celebrate outstanding mentors in that region and learn from their unique approaches that recognise the strengths and the needs of researchers working there. I was particularly struck by the intentional and systematic approach to mentoring that characterises our winners. Many congratulations on an award so well deserved"

The Nature Award for Mentoring Science, which has been running for almost 20, seeks to celebrate mentors who have made an outstanding contribution to early career researchers in their career development. Focused on a different region each year, the awards have recognised mentors from across 18 locations to date, including: Brazil, India, Singapore . Building on a suite of awards as part of the Nature Awards programme, the Mentoring in Science accolade is a key platform in which to recognise and celebrate the work done by key leaders across disciplines in supporting the next generation of researchers in surfacing and communicating their research for global impact.

More information on these, the current and past awards and winners, can be found here.

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Notes to Editors

Each award comes with a cash prize of US$10,000 (which will be shared by the joint winners).

The award for lifetime achievement in mentoring is open to individuals who were awarded their PhD or Medical Doctorate before 1995.

The award for mid-career achievement is open to individuals who were awarded their PhD or Medical Doctorate in or after 1995.

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