OUR FELLOWS
Matilda Dela Dzomeku has long been interested in promoting edible and medicinal mushrooms among Ghanaians, confident that this will help reduce the incidence of malnutrition among children. “My father had wanted me to enter his line of work—accounting—but that didn’t interest me. I resolved to put my heart into my chosen program, biological sciences, and I haven’t looked back,” she says.
Dzomeku joined the CSIR directly after graduating from university with an MPhil in Biological Sciences following her first degree in the same discipline. “I was placed in the mushroom lab. I had never even eaten mushrooms before then, but I found them so fascinating,” she says. “For instance, the antioxidants (phenol) in mushrooms are the highest of any vegetable.”
Field of Research
Research, development, and technology transfer for edible and medicinal fungi cultivation in Ghana, particularly the development of low-cost, environmentally friendly technologies to provide jobs for rural women, and also the collection, classification, and preservation of mushrooms found in Ghana.