Dr. Isoken Olomu graduated from medical school in 1977 and completed a Pediatric Residency program in Nigeria & the United Kingdom in 1985. Since then, I have remained in academic medicine, rising to the rank of Senior Lecturer at the University of Benin, Nigeria before moving to the United States in 1993. In the United States, I continued to pursue my academic career. I completed another Pediatric Residency at Michigan State University from 1994 to 1996 (during which time I served as an Instructor in the Department of Pediatrics & Human Development) and thereafter proceeded to Stanford University, Palo Alto CA for fellowship training in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine from 1996 to 1999. At Stanford, I did the research component of my training in Dr. Christopher Contag’s laboratory where I participated in his pioneering work on using bioluminescent markers to trace infections and immune responses in living animal models. Dr. Contag is currently the Hannah Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Microbiology & Molecular Genetics, and Director of the Institute for Quantitative Health Sciences here at Michigan State University. I came back to Michigan State in 1999 to join the faculty in the Department of Pediatrics & Human Development as Assistant Professor (HP) and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2008.
Following the completion of fellowship training at Stanford, I took an interest in Epidemiology to broaden my potential to study the determinants, exposures, and outcomes of perinatal and long-term problems of newborns. To achieve this, I obtained a master’s degree in Epidemiology which has been invaluable in my scholarly work. This has enabled me to broaden the pool of faculty with whom I am able to develop collaborative projects.
In addition to my active participation in teaching in the College of Human Medicine (CHM), I have served on several committees in CHM including the College Advisory Committee, Reappointment, Promotions and Tenure Committee (as vice chair), chaired some faculty search committees, and currently serve as chair of my department’s executive committee. I served for several years as Associate Program Director for the Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine Fellowship program and was appointed Director of the program in 2019.