Data from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) indicates that only 14 per cent of all students attending university are female with only 26 per cent of these number ending up as PhD graduates as of 2018. These numbers are even worse when it comes to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education.
However, there are Ghanaian women breaking grounds in academia in Ghana and making significant strides in STEM education in the country.
One of such women is Prof. Nana Ama Browne Klutse, an associate professor of physics at the Department of Physics at the University of Ghana. Not only is she one of the only two women in the faculty of the department, but Prof Browne Klutse has risen to head it after her appointment in 2023.
She is also the youngest professor of physics in Ghana and the first Ghanaian to be elected to the UN IPCC (United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Bureau as the Vice Chair of Working Group 1.
She is currently a member of the Task Group on Data Support for Climate Change Assessments (TG-Data).
She previously worked as the Remote Sensing manager at the GIS and Climate Centre and as a senior research scientist at the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission.
As an academic, Prof. Nana Ama Browne Klutse’s research focus areas include understanding climate dynamics and variability from observations; climate impacts assessment on health, energy, agriculture, water resources, disaster risks and gender; climate services by transforming historical and projected climate data into useful information for planning and decision making; and atmospheric disturbances.
She also teaches courses in Mechanics and Thermal Physics, Electricity and Magnetism, Research Methods and Meteorology. She also has over 25 academic publications to her name.
Prof. Browne Klutse also has an interest in politics and is a card-bearing member of the largest opposition political party in Ghana, the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
She has on two occasions contested in the parliamentary primaries of the party at her home town Abura-Asebu-Kwamankese in the Central Region but she lost on both occasions to the former deputy Minister for Information, Felix Kwakye Ofosu.
Within the rank and file of the NDC, she is seen as one of the brightest shots of the party who would play critical roles in the science and technology sector in the next NDC government.
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Associate professor of physics, Prof. Nana Ama Browne Klutse