UNILORIN, Imperial College, London, sponsor outstanding Ph.D. student
By Mubarak Oladosu
A postgraduate student at the University of Ilorin, Damilare Taiwo Isaiah, has been offered a full scholarship to pursue his three year full-time Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) programme at the Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Ilorin, in partnership with the Imperial College, London under the xSTAR Project Nigeria, which is sponsored by WellcomeTrust.
The offer was conveyed to the candidate after the decision of the selection committee, at the end of a highly competitive and rigorous selection process, through a letter dated January 15, 2026, and signed by the Principal Investigator on the xSTAR Project Nigeria, Prof. Olatunji Mathew Kolawole.
According to the letter, the student was selected following the assessment of his academic credentials, research aptitude, technical knowledge, and the fact that he exhibited a potential to make meaningful contributions to arbovirus surveillance research in Nigeria and across Africa.
The letter reads in part, “Your exceptional performance throughout the interview stages, particularly your grasp of serological cross-reactivity, epidemiological inference, and modelling potential, as well as your articulate research vision, distinguished you as the most suitable candidate for this position. ”
The programme, which is entitled “Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Microbiology – Arbovirus and Other Pathogens Serosurveillance and Modelling ” will be supervised by Prof. Olatunji Mathew Kolawole of the Department of Microbiology, University of Ilorin, and co-supervised by Prof. Ilaria Dorigatti of the Imperial College in London.
In the course of the programme, Mr Isaiah would be exposed to Laboratory training in multiplex serological assays and to Computational and statistical modelling training.
In addition, the University of Ilorin, which is the host institution, is expected to cover expenses of the Ph.D. candidate to the tune of N19 million in total,over a period of about three years.
The breakdown of the expenses to be borne by the University of Ilorin shows that tuition and mandatory academic fees of the candidate is to the tune of 1.5 million naira which the University will disburse in installments of N500,000 per annum for three years. This amount covers registration and departmental charges, and also examination and thesis submission fees.
The University of Ilorin will also pay a monthly stipend totalling N6.3 million at N175,000 per month for 36 months. This amount caters for the candidate’s feeding, daily expenses, local transport, utilities, and internet access.
The University of Ilorin will also bear accommodation expenses of the student which is N1.5 million at N500,000 per annum for three years.
On its part, the Imperial College will shoulder the return flights of the student’s international travel costs to the United Kingdom for training, visa processing fees and travel documentation and accommodation during UK training periods, international training programme costs and international travel to Senegal and France for laboratory training.
Mr Isaiah holds an M.Sc. in Microbiology, specialising in Microbial Genetics and Biotechnology, from Covenant University, where he was a fully funded scholar of the Covenant Applied Informatics and Communication Africa Centre of Excellence (CApIC-ACE), a World Bank–supported programme. He also holds a B.Tech in Pure and Applied Biology (Microbiology) from Ladoke Akintola University of Technology.
He previously worked as a Research Assistant at CApIC-ACE and has received competitive conference grants, including the IASpharma Travel Grant and the University of Ibadan Biomedical Research Conference Grant. Damilare has authored two peer-reviewed international journal articles, and contributed four book chapters.
