Drs. Olumide and Elizabeth Adenmosun

It’s official! Mr. and Mrs. Olumide and Elizabeth Adenmosun are now Drs. Olumide and Elizabeth Adenmosun. Childhood sweethearts since attending school together in their native Nigeria, the devoted couple earned their doctorate degrees at Florida Atlantic University on August 10, 2021. Olumide in Integrative Biology at the Department of Biological Sciences, Charles E. Schmidt College of Science and Elizabeth in Nursing at the Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing.

Olumide looks forward to working as an Adjunct Faculty in Biology at FAU Davie and Boca. Following appropriate board approvals, he also looks forward to continue working as an Embryologist with Dr. Michael Matilsky, Ph.D., HCLD (lab director at Boca Fertility IVF Center) – one of his academic research mentors who is a veteran in the field of Human Embryology, Andrology and Assisted Reproductive Technology). Olumide will also be working with his department’s chair in Biology (Dr. Sarah Milton) and the College of Science to help pioneer new Executive and Continuing Education courses in Assisted Reproductive Technology and DNA Forensics – with support from affiliate faculties with competencies in both fields. In 2017, Olumide also earned an MBA from the FAU College of Business and in 2013, he earned a Master of Science from the Department of Biological Science.

Elizabeth will be working as a Visiting Instructor at the College of Nursing on the Davie campus. 

"I had the honor of being Elizabeth’s  advisor and dissertation chair," said Dr. Cynthia Archibald, Associate Professor, College of Nursing. "Elizabeth, as a doctoral student, was on fire." Dr. Archibald said she admired how both Elizabeth and her husband were able to successfully alternate between parenting, being students, and teaching.

"Olumide has been a fixture in the Biology department as both a student and as an instructor since entering the Masters degree program in 2012," said Dr. Milton. "Olumide has been working and learning on both the Davie (his primary campus) and Boca campuses. He has always been eager to support the needs of the department and our students. Over the years, he has taken on increasingly large and complex service teaching loads in response to changes in academic programming in other units, for example teaching Microbiology for the growing number of Nursing students. It will be difficult to manage without his steady presence. Elizabeth also contributed to the Biology Department as a former GTA on the Davie campus, where the lab coordinator was always delighted to have her on the teaching roster. I offer wholehearted congratulations to both Olu and Elizabeth on their respective graduations!"

Olumide and Elizabeth were married in 2013 after Elizabeth completed her BNSc degree in Nigeria and Olumide was completing his MS prog at FAU. He had travelled back to Nigeria during that Summer of 2013 to work with the World Health Organization office in Nigeria as an intern. He returned again to Nigeria after his MS program to work at his alma mater, Bowen University, where he taught for one year as a visiting assistant lecturer. In 2015 the couple returned to FAU to continue their studies.

Olumide and Elizabeth, who are both 35 years old, have known each other since they were 10. When they were children, they were both screened as being "healthy carriers of the sickle cell disorder (genotypes AS and AC respectively)." Olumide’s Ph.D research was centered on preventing genetic disorders in newborns using a less invasive Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) to genotypically sort sperm cells with microfluidic chips. He had worked on sorting Cystic Fibrosis sperm, but hopes to continue his research on helping to prevent sickle cell disorders in newborns as well.

Elizabeth, on the other hand, had worked on understanding sexual risk behaviors among Nigerian-American adolescents, and helping to create measures that will prevent vulnerabilities to diseases such as HIV/AIDS.

The couple say that their passion for sickle cell research became even more personal when their 22-month old daughter, Jemima, was screened as a healthy carrier with an AC blood genotype. "We did however bank Jemima’s cord blood should we ever need to consider a stem cell transplant to correct any potential hemoglobinopathies in her future "unborn" younger siblings – if they are a match," Olumide said.

Olumide and Elizabeth hope to further work together as faculties at FAU to help prevent genetic disorders in newborns. "As budding scientists in reproductive medicine and nursing respectively, we hope to run a joint practice someday perhaps in Embryology and Midwifery since Elizabeth used to be a Nurse-midwife from Africa as well," Olumide said.