Rose-Margaret Ekeng-Itua’s love for technology began at a young age in Nigeria. Many women in her community were not given the needed push to pursue science in her community but Ekeng-Itua overcame the odds and eventually made history as the first Black woman Ph.D holder in Cybernetics in the world.
Mathematics and Physics were two subjects she loved most in her childhood, hence it was not surprising that she went on to pursue a bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, setting the stage for her future career.
“I live in the Bay Area in California and was attracted to engineering and in particular Telecommunications Engineering because I fell in love with Electromagnetic Wave-forms during a Physics class in High School,” she said in a 2020 interview. “I wanted to learn how to design devices that could manipulate electromagnetic waveform for the good of humanity. I was also drawn to Engineering because it sets no limits on creativity and it would afford me the opportunity to create positive social change.”
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Ekeng-Itua earned a master’s degree in Mobile and Satellite Communications Engineering from the University of Surrey, U.K. With her desire to shatter barriers, she entered the field of Cybernetics, becoming a notable figure in the field after over 20 years of experience in engineering and STEM education.
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Cybernetics has been defined as “the study of communication and control systems in living things and machines. A scientist specializing in cybernetics might study human-robot interaction.”
Nigeria’s Ekeng-Itua earned her Cybernetics PhD from the University of Reading in the United Kingdom under the supervision of her mentor, Prof. Kevin Warwick, a well-known figure in cybernetics.
Earning a doctorate in Cybernetics was not only a personal triumph but a feat to inspire other underrepresented groups in STEM fields across the world. Ekeng-Itua advocates diversity and inclusion in STEM fields while helping to change the narrative of Africa in the global (STEM) landscape.
In sub-Saharan Africa, between 18 to 31% of science researchers are women, compared to 49% in Southeast Europe and the Caribbean, per research.
Amid her advocacy to promote diversity in the STEM field, Ekeng-Itua established the African Technology and Innovation Institute (AFRITECHI), a knowledge transfer hub, and technological research support center to “mainstream Africa-centric STEM education pedagogy and curriculum, empowering young Africans to embrace their potentials,” Forbes reported.
“African and other indigenous technological innovations can solve most of the global issues highlighted in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs),” she said.
Becoming a leading figure in the STEM field, she is also behind other programs like Women in Big Data (WiBD) Nigeria and the Women in STEAM Mentoring Dinner in California, which helps female students connect with industry professionals. She is additionally the first and founding Lead for the Society for Women Engineers (SWE) African-American Affinity Group.
Speaking in a recent interview on why she chose Cybernetics, Ekeng-Itua said “I am a Dreamer-Doer-Thinker, so I always had dreams, but my dreams were not necessarily focused on being ‘great’, but more on how I could be a positive change agent, and how to create initiatives, programs and technologies that will impact the world positively. I am human-centric in my approach to making positive change hence, the field of Cybernetics gave me that opportunity as Cybernetics is centered on purposeful design of technologies for society and humans.
“This has always been my passion, and pursuing my passion and the dream to disrupt some societal misnomers propelled me to being the first black woman to earn a doctorate degree in Cybernetics. Being the first in anything is always retrospective, for me, the initial focus is always creating positively transformative impact.”
