Where are they now? Milton

I am Babajide Milton Macaulay, a native of Nigeria and an alumnus of the University of Greenwich. Before winning the Commonwealth Scholarship (Shared category) in 2012 to pursue a Master’s degree in Sustainable Environmental Management at the UoG, I completed a Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech.) degree in Biology at the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), Nigeria.

On my graduation in the Summer of 2014, I was privileged to be the pioneer recipient of the Natural Resources Institute (NRI) Prize for the Best MSc Thesis on the Sustainable Environmental Management programme for the 2012-2013 session. I also made a Distinction on the MSc programme, a feat I was only able to achieve through sheer resilience. My MSc thesis was entitled, ‘Bioremediation of Oil spills: A review of challenges for research advancement.’ It investigated the various challenges of cleaning up oil spills on land and water environments.

I returned to Nigeria immediately after completing my Master’s degree and resumed as a Graduate Assistant in my home University (FUTA) in Nigeria. About a month after my return, I was promoted to the position of Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Biology, due to my acquisition of a Master’s degree and therefore, given a more elaborate lecturing role. I taught undergraduate courses such as Plant Ecology, General Ecology, Plant Physiology and a host of Storage Entomology courses from 2014 to 2015. During this period, I also supervised the undergraduate research projects of 10 students.

In September 2015, I won another Commonwealth Scholarship (Regular category) to pursue a PhD degree in Environmental Geochemistry and Geomicrobiology at the University of Manchester (UoM). My PhD project  focused on ‘understanding the roles of anaerobes and organic substances in the mobilisation of arsenic in groundwater.’ Since 2015, a series of laboratory experiments have led me to produce novel techniques for the capture of desired anaerobes at the subsurface for biogeochemistry research as well as the creation of an in-situ procedure of carrying out arsenic mobilisation studies to complement lab-based findings.

In less than a year, I am expected to hand in my PhD thesis and defend it in a viva voca that will last for some hours, which marks the end of an academic chapter and the birth a new academic dream! Learning never stops for me!

In terms of social engagements, I currently manage my PhD research group’s blog, ‘Manchester Organic Geochemistry Group (MOGG)’ which was created in 2017. Please copy the link to the blog to see what we do: https://manchesterogg.wordpress.com/

I also created a Facebook Page, ‘The Shoulders of Giants (TSG)’ in 2016 to provide scholarship information for interested candidates but it was re-branded in 2017 with additional functions such as giving tips for scholarship applications and also inviting senior scholars to answer direct questions posed by young protégés. The FB page now has over 800 followers and I have two volunteers who are helping me manage it. At the end of 2017, 12 followers of the page who have also personally benefited from my guidance over the years, all got international scholarships to pursue their desired postgraduate programmes abroad.

In addition, in 2016, I initiated the creation of a 13-man research group known as ‘Futurists’, with the view to developing alternative herbal-based drug for the future, mainly for tropical diseases. The current focus of the research group is the development of an alternative drug for common anti-malarial drugs.  So far, the results have been very impressive. Hopefully, in time, we will get the answers we so desperately seek!

In January 2018, I created an online educational consulting platform, ‘iLLUMANIA’, which provides educational services such as dissertation writing supervision/essay coursework guidance; CV restructuring; personal statement review; scholarship application support; career counselling. Currently, I have eight consultants working with me but an urgent expansion is in sight as public reception has been fantastic and the number of clients doubling and the number of enquiries tripling daily! To learn more about iLLUMANIA, please visit our website www.illumania.org.

The last four years have been super bright for me and I hope I will be able to sustain the trend into the future as there are numerous plans underway to leave my footprints in the sands of time before I draw my last breath.

Thank you, Lynne, for publicising my activities on the Medway students' blog. I am grateful!!