–  Vice Chairman

Tyler Hakeem Akinola Ogunmowo grew up in California. His love for science and technology was obvious from the start of his life, as he spent his early days dismantling and reassembling anything he could get his hands on. Questions about the world and how it worked were abundant and tireless.

His passion for inquisition continued throughout high school, where he entered the International Baccalaureate academic program. It was in this program that he developed his love for natural sciences. That love blossomed into a successful academic career that began at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Here, Mr. Ogunmowo graduated with a degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and received a distinction for the scientific research he pursued while enrolled in the university. His research entailed understanding how an animal’s nervous system can properly integrate the variety of environmental stimuli it receives.

Through this work, which continued after graduation, Mr. Ogunmowo entered the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine to pursue a Ph.D. in Biochemistry, Cellular, and Molecular Biology.

Currently, he is studying how neurons communicate with each other, and how that communication changes over time to adapt to an animal’s internal and external environment.

So far, Mr. Ogunmowo has participated in and led numerous scientific publications.

Throughout his scientific career, Mr. Ogunmowo has prioritized scientific outreach. Throughout college, he acted as an outreach coordinator for a program that brought 5th graders from a local underserved elementary school into a chemistry lab for science education.

As well, he was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Biomentor, which specifically aimed to help struggling students, largely underrepresented, in their studies. In graduate school, Mr. Ogunmowo continued this trend. He has acted as a mentor to local underrepresented high school students in Baltimore city through the THREAD program, worked with Project Bridge to bring science to the community through scientific demos, and worked with Brain Fest to teach neuroscience to interested families. He has acted as a Post-baccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP) Peer mentor, where he aided underrepresented, college-graduated students to apply to and enter graduate school.

Additionally, he worked as a Summer Academic Research Experience Mentor, where he mentored a high school student from an underserved institution on a research project completed over the summer. Through the Akogun Peak Foundation, Mr. Ogunmowo hopes to continue to bridge the gap between science and underrepresented and underserved communities through outreach, education, and opportunity.