Today, Damilola E. Ologunagba will be one of more than a dozen FAMU students graduating with a Doctor of Philosophy degree, and one of more than 440 students graduating tonight at the university’s 6 pm summer commencement exercise in the Al Lawson Center.
Ologunagba, age 25, will earn her Ph.D. in Physics. Her journey was a bit different than most FAMU students.
Ologunagba came to FAMU through a partnership the university has with the Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA) in Nigeria, that allows eligible, and willing, students to complete their final year of undergraduate studies in Tallahassee before beginning graduate studies.
Ologunagba attended FUTA for four years before transferring to FAMU and earned her bachelor’s in physics in 2016. She started pursuing her Ph.D. in 2018, and had some family issues which forced her to take a year off. Undeterred, she came back and completed what is usually a six-year program in four years.
Supportive faculty
She credits the support of major professor Shyam P. Kattel, Ph.D, with whom she published four articles in prestigious peer-reviewed journals, for embracing her goals from the beginning.
“We have three more articles currently under review in various high-impact journals,” Kattel said.
Ologunagba is Kattel’s first Ph.D. student, together they have worked on projects about the computational design of materials for hydrogen generation and ammonia synthesis.
“He was the best adviser anyone could have. He mentored and encouraged me to put in the work. He was always very helpful. He always had an idea of what I can do,” she said.
While at FAMU, Ologunagba met her husband Olumide Abioye, a fellow FUTA alum, who was a master’s degree student when they met. He gave her a ride to campus on her first day. They started dating at the end of spring 2017 and married four years later. Abioye earned his Ph.D. in civil engineering from the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering in 2019 and now works for Airbus, the European aerospace giant in Leesburg, Virginia.
Upon graduation, today, Ologunagba, has job offers from Intel and Chevron.