Dr Amina Nkrumah is one of the most respected materials scientists working in Europe today. Originally from Accra, Ghana, she is now 52 years old and holds a professorship at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands. Over the course of a remarkable career, she has changed the way scientists think about energy-efficient materials.
Dr Nkrumah grew up in Accra and showed an early passion for chemistry. She completed her PhD at the University of Ghana in 1998, then spent four years doing postdoctoral research in Germany. In 2002, she joined a research group in the Netherlands, and in 2012 she received her professorship — recognition of more than a decade of outstanding work.
Throughout her career, Dr Nkrumah has developed three new materials that are now used in commercial solar panels. She has published over 80 peer-reviewed scientific papers, making her one of the most cited researchers in her field. Her work has attracted international attention and she has collaborated with scientists on four continents.
In 2015, she won her first major prize at a ceremony in Stockholm — the Brandt Prize for Materials Innovation. She published her most important paper, on ultra-thin conductive films, in 2019. Many experts considered it a genuine scientific breakthrough. In 2021, she moved to a new, larger laboratory specifically built for her research team.
Dr Nkrumah has also supervised 25 PhD students over the course of her career, several of whom have gone on to lead their own research groups. 'Passing on knowledge is as important as creating it,' she says.
Today, she continues to push the boundaries of what is possible. She has not yet found a solution to the problem she says is the most important of her career — but she is confident she will.