Prof. Omolola Irinoye

Professor Omolola Oladunni Irinoye is a registered nurse, midwife and public-health nurse who has built a career across nursing practice, university teaching, research, postgraduate supervision, programme development and academic administration.

Her formal nursing education began at the School of Nursing, University College Hospital, Ibadan, where she qualified in 1980. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Ibadan in 1984, a Master’s degree in Nursing from Obafemi Awolowo University in 1991, and a Master’s degree in Women, Development and Administration from the University of York in 1998 as a Chevening Scholar. She completed a PhD in Nursing at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in 2005 and later participated in the International Visiting Scholars Programme at the University of Maryland School of Nursing in 2013.

After early clinical and private-practice experience, she joined Obafemi Awolowo University as Lecturer II in 1991. She rose through the academic ranks and became Professor of Community/Public Health Nursing in 2013. Her work has combined teaching and supervision with programme accreditation, curriculum development, open and distance learning, community-health interventions and research on health access.

In 2023, she was appointed to lead Achievers University, becoming the institution’s first female Vice-Chancellor. Public records also document her leadership as Head of the Department of Nursing Science at Obafemi Awolowo University on three occasions and her contribution to establishing the Department of Nursing at Osun State University.