Iyabo Usman

Usman holds a BSc(Hons) degree from Ladoke Akintola University of Technology in Nigeria (1999) and an MSc (2007) and PhD (2009) in nuclear physics from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. As a postdoctoral researcher at iThemba LABS, Cape Town (2010-2012), she contributed to the development of the zero-degree facility of the K600 magnetic spectrometer. Joining the School of Physics at the University of the Witwatersrand in 2012 as a lecturer, she currently leads the Nuclear Structure Research Group. Usman's research encompasses experimental nuclear structure physics, environmental radiation physics, nuclear materials, and nuclear security and forensics. Her notable contributions include investigating nuclear giant resonances across the periodic table through medium-energy experiments at iThemba LABS SSC cyclotron. She has been a visiting scholar at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (2014) and Argonne National Laboratory, Illinois (2019). As an executive member of the Council of the South African Institute of Physics and chairperson of the South African Network for Nuclear Education Science and Technology and iThemba LABS Users, she has been a South African National Research Foundation rated researcher since 2013.