Dr Awoyemi's story

Dr Toluwalase Awoyemi grew up in a rural town in Oshun State near Lagos, Nigeria. Subsistence farming was a part in his life growing up, and agricultural science and biology became Toluwalase’s favourite subjects in school. Toluwalase completed his secondary school final exam with one of the top three grades in his school. As a result, he gained admission into the University of Ibadan medical school, the best medical school in West Africa, and excelled. In total, Toluwalase finished with 20 academic awards: only three other people in the university’s history accumulated so many. 

Family and friends mean a lot. They will be the ones to get you through tough times. During his studies, Toluwalase volunteered for CHECK Medical Missions and coordinated the academic arm of the charity. He also went on to become Academic Director, Planning Director for their outreach arm, and Logistics Director. Toluwalase began officially teaching as part of the medical school’s department in his fourth year.

More recently, Toluwalase co-founded his own Non-Governmental Organisation called The Ganglion Initiative, an education social enterprise which aims to correct the shortage of careers counsellors and university admission services among public secondary schools in Nigeria compared to their private counterparts. In 2017, Toluwalase was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to begin his PhD in Women and Reproductive Health at Oxford. His research aims to understand why some babies are born prematurely and why a significant number of women develop hypertension while pregnant. Dr Awoyemi is also involved in the access and outreach programme at his college, Christ Church, and works to increase the representation of ethnic minority students at Oxford.