Dr.  Mercy Badu is a Natural Products Chemist, whose research seeks to promote indigenous underutilized oilseeds and nuts to address food security challenges in Ghana.

Mercy Badu applies novel approaches to identify and characterize the chemical functionality of extracts from different parts of plants, establish their macronutrients, micronutrients, anti-nutritional factors and medicinal properties. This is to address malnutrition and promote good health in line with the Sustainable Development Goals 2 and 3.

(To end to hunger through achieving food security, reducing malnutrition and sustainable agriculture to promote good health and well-being by the year 2030).

Dr. Mercy Badu has won a number of international awards and fellowships including the Africa Academy of Science - Climate Impact Research and Capacity Leadership Enhancement (AAS-CIRCLE) post-doctoral fellowship (2017) and The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) Individual Research Grant (2017 - 2019), the International Foundation for Science (IFS) grant (2018 – 2021), the Leading Integrated Research for Agenda (LIRA) 2030 Africa research grant (2019 – 2021), the Organization for Women in Science in the Developing World (OWSD) Early Career Fellowship award (2019 – 2021) and currently the Cambridge Africa Alborada research grant.

In addition to her teaching and research career, Mercy has also been working with a number of organizations to mentor young women pursuing careers in the field of Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). Such organizations include African Research Academies for Women Ghana (ARAW-G), Campaign for Female Education (Camfed) programme, the Millennium Development Authority (MiDA) Internship and Mentoring programme. Mercy has also worked together with three other women scientist to establish the Women in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (WiSTEM) initiative based at KNUST. The aim of the WiSTEM initiative is to inspire and sustain the younger generation in pursuing STEM field careers. WiSTEM works in collaboration with the Vice Chancellor’s Office, KNUST to organize mentoring and Leadership coaching programmes in Ghana.

Mercy has mentored and supervised over 100 undergraduate students, who graduated with first class and/or second-class upper division. Additionally, she has mentored and supervised 10 Master of Science and Master of Philosophy students who have completed their programmes and are gainfully employed.  Moreover, she has mentored and supervised 2 PhD with 5 postgraduate students currently in her lab at different levels of their studies. Mercy is a member- Ghana Science Association, Ghana Chemical Society, fellow- Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World and fellow- L’Oreal for Women in Science.