Cape Town, South Africa
IkamvaYouth
Mathematics tutor for students from a township, with an NGO helping disadvantaged youth reach tertiary education or employment.
About
The long way to bioinformatics
I started in Linux systems and networking, spent years in machine learning, then studied mathematics to understand the formulas underneath it all. Graphic design and writing came along the way.
Every step pointed toward the same place: the questions that sit between biology and computation. I've studied and worked across Benin, Nigeria, South Africa, Rwanda, India, and now Canada, and I'm always keen to learn the next thing. My PhD was on predicting genes in eukaryotic genomes with hidden semi-Markov models and machine learning; today I build the infrastructure that lets us judge whether AI-generated scientific hypotheses hold up.
Now
What I'm working on
MecCog / APOE4 community challenge
I build the evaluation side: consensus metrics, benchmarking, submission validation, and reproducible pipelines for assessing mechanistic hypotheses of Alzheimer's disease. A collaboration with John Moult / BEACON and Hugging Face.
Publications
Papers & theses
-
2026
Prédiction des gènes eucaryotes : des modèles de Markov cachés à l'apprentissage automatique
-
2025
-
2025
Psychosocial work determinants of older adults' participation in the job market: protocol for a scoping review of quantitative longitudinal studies
-
2024
Retirement status and physical activity in US adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus: influence of sex, race/ethnicity and acculturation level
-
2022
From pairwise to multiple spliced alignment
-
2019
Blockchain for child labour decrease in cocoa production in West and Central Africa
-
working paper
Multiple spliced alignment for transcript evolution estimation and gene models prediction
Education
Degrees
-
2026
PhD, Bioinformatics — Université de Sherbrooke, Canada
Prédiction des gènes eucaryotes : des modèles de Markov cachés à l'apprentissage automatique. Advisor: Aïda Ouangraoua.
-
2018 — 2019
MSc, Mathematical Sciences — University of Cape Town / AIMS, South Africa
MasterCard Foundation scholarship. Work on morphology and shape detection in binary images; Best Paper Award at the inaugural conference.
-
2015 — 2017
MSc, Computer Science (AI / Machine Learning) — University of Ibadan, Nigeria
Regional scholarship. Phenological classification of plant species from digital images using machine learning.
-
2013 — 2015
MEng — Institut de Mathématiques et de Sciences Physiques (IMSP), Benin
Internet of Things and Linux network administration. A semester at C-DAC, India, and a wireless sensor network to measure air pollution in Cotonou.
-
2011 — 2013
BSc, Mathematics & Physics — École Polytechnique d'Abomey-Calavi, Benin
Undergraduate studies in mathematics and physics.
Experience
Along the way
-
2017 — 2018
Research Assistant / Support Engineer — IMSP, Benin
Designed and prepared telecommunications and network-performance courses, and ran project writing, calls for applications, evaluation and monitoring, and graphic design for web and mobile apps.
-
2016 —
Freelance Graphic Designer
Logos, business cards, posters, certificates, and interfaces for web and mobile apps — started after winning a university logo bid.
-
2017
Intern — kLab, Rwanda
Trained in digital fabrication (Arduino, SolidWorks, CorelDraw, VCarve) and prototyping (3D printer, laser cutter, CNC / ShopBot). Taught robotics, Scratch, and mobile app development to 200 refugee girls.
-
2014 — 2015
Network Administrator — IMSP, Benin
Helped set up the university network at its new campus and ran the computer centre.
-
2013
Analyst Programmer — Port Autonome de Cotonou
Built software to automate product management for the Information Systems & Quality department.
-
2011
IT Technician — NGO Bethesda
Installed and configured computers, managed database backups, and handled troubleshooting.
Community & impact
Giving back, wherever I've been
Mexico
Student Energy · InfraRural · Nomad Republic
Helped a Mayan community build clean cookstoves to cut the wood smoke that kills thousands of women a year.
Benin
L'atelier des griots
Regenerated a youth centre with eco-friendly materials, in a studio that tells community stories through art and architecture.
Sherbrooke, Canada
AIESEC Sherbrooke
Marketing team leader — strategy, brand awareness, and the development of my team members.
Benin
Centre Culturel Nelson Mandela
Volunteered in a community library with internet access, receiving and tagging books and helping students in need.
Sherbrooke, Canada
La Fabrique-Coop
Volunteer at a maker cooperative offering shared workshops and tools, from traditional craft to cutting-edge technology.
Beyond work
Writing & design
Outside research, I write — it has been a constant since long before the PhD — and I design. I don't think a CV captures a person; these are part of who I am too.