AOAC SSA Annual Meeting - Day 3

Ntiokam Divine has over 15 years of experience in youth entrepreneurship, advocacy and mobilization of youth interested in agriculture.In May 2014,He recently established the Climate Smart Agriculture Youth network (CSAYN), which is now operational in thirty (30) countries across; Africa, Asia,North America and USA.His background includes international exposure in youth mainstreaming, notably participating in the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development since inception where he coordinated and facilitated the translation of the Global Goals into over sixty (60) local languages, as well as transcription into Braille for the visually impaired. This is to ensure “Leave No One Behind”. In addition to this, for the SDGs to be for youth with youth, Divine designed a program entitled: African Youth for the SDGs training (AYSDGT) where youth are trained to better comprehend and own the SDGs in their local languages.He has hands-on experience and training developing and managing youth projects within the EU and Non–EU countries.He is a committed young professional with team building potential, having demonstrated his ability to reach out to youth in urban and rural areas.To sum up, his bilingual (French and English) skills and networking abilities have led to the CSAYN becoming operational.

Tameka Taylor is an Analytical Chemist with the United States Environmental Protection Agency. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Towson University and is a Doctoral Candidate in Bioenvironmental Science at Morgan State University. Throughout her career, spanning more than 15 years, she has conducted environmental and food analysis to include the development of methodology in the detection of chemical warfare agents, pesticides and emerging contaminants in various sample matrices including human specimen, environmental and agricultural commodities. Her current research interest includes the composition and abundance of microplastics and their sources, their transport/fate throughout estuarine waterways, and their impact on the aquatic ecosystem.

I have a passion for food safety and I recently completed my MSc Food Science degree at Stellenbosch University. I will be beginning my PhD next year.

Maria is passionate about understanding laboratories' measurement challenges, and developing relevant solutions, products and quality assurance training that will enable laboratories to deliver credible testing services to the country and region, sustaining quality of life, protecting consumers and conserving environment. This desire to help build chemical testing capacity has allowed her to reinforce networks within the analytical testing community across Africa.

While embracing the dual role of technical manager and analytical chemist, she works with an amazing team of 12 dedicated analyical scientists.

As a team, they have established a reference material production facility, delivering reference measurements, new certified reference materials and proficiency testing schemes in the fields of food safety and nutrition, environmental pollution monitoring, forensic analysis and the characterization of organic chemicals according to the international standards ISO 17025, 17034 and 17043.