Prof. (Mrs) Rita Akosua Dickson is a Ghanaian phytochemist. In September 2018, she was appointed as the pro vice chancellor of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, making her the first female to occupy this position. She is a board member of the Pharmacy Council and Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana.
On June 25, 2020 Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology announced her appointment as the first female Vice Chancellor of the University effective 1st August,2020. She is to serve a four-year term.
We present to you the 4 most fascinating facts you probably didn’t know about the first female Vice Chancellor of the University.
1. She graduated from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology with a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy in 1994 and acquired an MParm at the same university in pharmacognosy in 1999. Upon winning a Commonwealth Scholarship in 2003, she moved to the United Kingdom to pursue a PhD at Kings’ College London, University of London.
2. Dickson began her career as a lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in the year 2000. After leaving to pursue further studies in the UK, she returned to Ghana in 2007 and continued lecturing at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. In 2009 she was promoted to a senior lecturer and further to an associate professor in 2014. Prior to her appointment as pro vice chancellor in 2018, she was the dean of the faculty of pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences.
Her work as a phytochemist covers the areas of bioactive natural products in the management of communicable and non-communicable diseases.
3. She mostly researches about natural products, with anti-infective, wound-healing, anti-inflammatory, anti-pyretic and antidiabetic properties among others; based on their ethnopharmacological usage. Some of her publications include:
Antibacterial and resistance –modifying effects of Mezoneuron benthamianum,
Anti-inflammatory and Analgesic Effects in Rodent Models of Ethanol Extract of Clausena anisata Roots and their Chemical Constituents
Protection effect of the anthraquinones, cassiatorin and aurantio-obtusin from seeds of Senna tora against cowpea weevil attack.
4.She is married to Nana Dickson with four children. She is a Christian and fellowships with Grace Baptist Church, Amakom in Kumasi.
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