SEGUN OLATUNJI
Federal Government has appointed former Deputy Vice Chancellor (Development), Federal University of Agriculture (FUNAAB), Prof Sanni Oladimeji Lateef, as the new Executive Director/Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Stored Products Research Institute (NSPRI).
Consequently, Prof Lateef will today assume duty at the Ilorin, Kwara State, headquarters of NSPRI.
He obtained his First Degree from the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB), Nigeria in 1990. He finished from the institution’s Department of Food Science and Technology with a Second Class Upper Division. He proceeded to the Department of Food Technology, University of Ibadan, where he obtained Master and PhD Degrees in 1993 and 1999, respectively.
He returned to his Alma mata, FUNAAB in 1993, where he was employed as an Assistant Lecturer. He was promoted Professor of Food Science and Technology in 2008. In 2015, Prof Lateef presented his Inaugural Lecture and in 2017, he became Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Development).
Prof Lateef won the 2008 Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Award Regional Technology Development in Sub Saharan Africa.
This multiple international award-winner has over 27 years’ experience in research, consultancy and collaborations as a post-harvest expert in tropical root crops mostly implemented by the International Institute of Tropical Root Crop and Natural Resources Institute, United Kingdom. Prof Lateef is also a project leader to multi-million dollar EU/Gates Foundation sponsored projects since 2008 to date. He was a resource person for the World Bank upscaling of flash drying experience in West Africa. He also served as the Principal Investigator, Food Developers Initiative and Food Science and Nutrition Network sponsored by the Association of African Universities in Nigeria, Benin and Sierra Leone and Food Science and Nutrition Network in West Africa, March 2010 to August 2011 under the sponsorship of African Universities/UK DFID.
The new NSPRI boss is also the Vice Chair, Steering Committee of the African Women in Agricultural Research and Development, and former National President, Nigerian Institute of Food Science and Technology.
Prof Lateef is a Fellow of the Nigeria Academy of Science (FAS) and President of the national body of the FUNAAB Alumni Association.
