Simeon Stevenson Turay, a Sierra Leonean student at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana has won a six-month fellowship in India.

He is a PhD candidate in Highway and Transportation Engineering under The Regional Transport Research and Education Centre Kumasi (TRECK), who became the first Sierra Leonean to have been awarded the World Bank Africa Centre of Excellence (ACE) award to pursue a Master’s degree in Road and Transportation Engineering in 2019 under the Regional Transport Research and Education Centre, Kumasi (TRECK).

He was selected based on his research proposal, his demonstration and ability to conduct independent research among other requirements to spend 6 months of research and networking at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, Chennai, India. He is expected to gain knowledge on the arrangement and operations of the Public Transport sector in some Indian cities, attend seminars and make presentations in conferences whilst at the same time working on his doctoral thesis and his selection came among a host of applicants from Sub Saharan Africa, who applied for this high profile and competing fellowship,

One year into his doctoral research, Simeon, through the founder and then Centre Director Ing. Rev Prof Charles Anum Adams who doubles as his Principal Supervisor, applied for the most prestigious CV Raman fellowship program, a fellowship under the Department of Science and Technology through the Government of India.

Dr. C.V Raman, an Indian theoretical physicist who was awarded the 1930 Nobel prize in Physics for his works on light scattering, called the ‘Raman effect’ was the first Asian to receive a Nobel Prize in any sciences.

He has been a research assistant and lecturer II at the University of Sierra Leone for over 6 years. His current research interests include; urban public transport planning, transport demand modelling, traffic engineering, statistical analysis and geotechnical analysis and design of dams. Simeon has a wealth of experience in research and he is expected to impact his country and the wider society.