RoseEmma Mamaa Entsua-Mensah

Career

Teaching (2001–2009)

Entusua-Mensah started her career teaching in 2001 at the University of Education in Winneba. Simultaneously, she conducted research for the Water Research Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). Between 2004 and 2005, she worked on the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, an international, multi-disciplinary project designed to create a baseline for global ecosystems and a framework to evaluate how such systems could be better managed for the well-being of people and environments. After completing work on the project, she taught as a visiting scholar at the University of Tennessee, in Knoxville, before returning to Ghana in 2006 to teach at the University of Cape Coast until 2009.

Research scientist and administrator (2008–2019)

In 2008, Entusua-Mensah was appointed chief research scientist and deputy director general of the CSIR. Her appointment marked the first time that a woman was appointed as deputy director general. Entusua-Mensah's primary focus was on researching freshwater ecosystems and lagoons throughout Ghana and West Africa. She documented various fish species and their management systems and conducted research on coastal ecology and waterfalls in Ghana. She warned of the damages caused to the environment by illegal mining, salt winning, and improper sewage disposal, noting in particular that the destruction of mangroves impacted fish and wildlife as well as human development. She wrote and collaborated in over a hundred research publications. Entusua-Mensah was honoured for her work in fish farming by the South African NGO, Creating Excellence, in 2013 as Africa's Most Influential Woman in Agricultural Research and was inducted as a fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2015.

Entusua-Mensah also conducted gender studies which evaluated the roles of women involved in science education and policy and women who worked in sanitation and water management. In 2008, she was appointed to serve until 2012 on the inaugural steering committee of the African Women's Forum on Science and Technology (AWFST). The forum was an initiative created by the African Technology Policy Studies Network to promote women's involvement in policymaking, publishing, and development in science and technology. The first steering committee had representatives from the diaspora, as well as members such as Afaf Marei and Manal Samra (Egypt), Peggy Oti-Boateng (Ghana), Norah Olembo and Agnes Wakesho Mwang'ombe (Kenya), Mamolise Falatsa and Deepa Pullanikkatil (Lesotho), Ogugua Rita Eboh and Obioma Nwaorgu (Nigeria), Bitrina Diyamett (Tanzania) and Noah Matovu (Uganda), who were considered to be experts in their fields. The Ghanaian Ministry of Women and Children's Affairs recognised her work with the Excellence Award for Scientific Research in 2012. To further the development of women scientists, Entusua-Mensah pressed for policies that would overcome systemic biases against women in science and research. With other senior women scientists at the CSIR, a mentorship directory was developed in 2016 to encourage women to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, to give women networking opportunities with other scientists, and to facilitate the recruitment of talent.

Entusua-Mensah's administrative responsibilities included assisting the director general in establishing research priorities of the CSIR. She was directly responsible for monitoring and evaluating research results to maintain government standards of quality, overseeing agricultural research and coordination between researchers and farming extension services throughout the country. Among the projects she coordinated were the West African Agricultural Productivity Programme I (2008–2013), the agricultural research grants programmes for the National Agricultural Research System (2008–2017), the Food and Budgetary Support research (2010–2012) with partners from the World Bank and the Canadian International Development Agency, and the West African Agricultural Productivity Programme II (2013–2017). She also coordinated agricultural modernisation programmes funded by the Canadian International Development Agency, the Korea-Africa Food & Agriculture Cooperation Initiative, and the Korea Programme for International Cooperation in Agricultural Technology. She retired from the CSIR administration 2018, and from the CSIR in September 2019.

College of Science and Technology (2019–present)

Along with other academics, Entusua-Mensah was one of the leaders in pressing the CSIR to found the College of Science and Technology (CCST), with the goals of teaching natural resource management and climate science to create sustainable growth and address the impact of environmental change and implementation of new technologies. Created in 2017, the CCST offers courses on instruction in agriculture, clean air and water, entrepreneurship, health and medicine, natural resource conservation, sanitation management, sustainable energy, and transportation. The college was affiliated with the University of Cape Coast and graduated its first class in 2020. Upon leaving the CSIR, Entusua-Mensah became the director of the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at CCST and in 2022 was appointed as one of the 13 members of the governing board of the CCST.