Jacob Alhassan Hamidu

Faculty Biography

A BRIEF PERSONAL PROFILEI am an Animal Scientist and a holder of a Ph.D. in Animal Science with specializations in Embryology, Animal and Cell Physiology, Nutrition, Genetics, Cell Viability, and Chick Quality from the University of Alberta, Edmonton. Currently, I am an Associate Professor at the Department of Animal Science, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi. In 2016, I was the team leader of the USDA ASSESS Poultry Baseline Survey of poultry farms in Ghana, and a team member of the KNUST-LGSS Needs Assessment Project of District Assemblies in Ghana. I am part of a team of hatchery experts for Lohmann Tierzucht in Africa. I am visiting Professor at the Poultry Excellence Center at the University of Lome, Togo.  I am currently the hatchery manager of the Olympio hatchery at the Department of Animal Science, KNUST with some in-kind support from Jamesway Incubator Inc. in Canada. I have held the Grand Challenges Canada grant under the Saving Brain platform which investigated the topic” Promoting nutritious egg consumption in rural Ghana: A new paradigm in healthy childhood”. I am also among a team of poultry experts from the University of Alberta (Canada), the University of Calgary (Canada), and the KNUST (Ghana) who are investigating “the impact of eggshell quality on broiler breeder chick quality in Canada”. I have recently completed a grant project from the Skills Development Fund, which has led to the development of a short course curriculum for training hatchery professionals. I currently have 50 peer-reviewed publications, over 40 abstracts, and more than 30 conference proceedings in reputable journals. I love teaching, challenging research, student mentoring and getting the best out of students without hope of success, and working closely with the poultry industry. STATEMENT OF TEACHING PHILOSOPHY My teaching philosophy is to train and develop students’ capacity to visualize their potential to confront industry challenges with strong scientific concepts to benefit industry development. Every student deserves respect and must be given the opportunity and appropriate attention to understand concepts and be able to apply them when the need be. As such, each student is handled differently in my class, and interactions and discussions are key to increasing test scores and letting students acquire memorable positive life experiences with me. To make my students more prepared to take up industry positions my teaching is practical oriented and mixes theoretical class interaction with field visits and demonstrations. My goal is that each student is at the top of his/her potential and is among the best performers in the school. Each student is viewed as a future returnee to the institution and must be given every good view of my institution and to experience the fun of my class to be able to replicate the same wherever he/she works in the future. For me, the power of the inspired leader and helping to impact other people’s lives is something students can look up to in their teacher. My class contents are mixed with life experiences to bring up future leaders that understand that success in education comes with success in making an impact in our communities so that everyone will feel happy in our society. During teaching and in the office every person who walks in is heard even in my busy moments to leave a positive impression on every student. I lead by example to my student with strong moral, mental and dedicated service to my job and nation. Always, the last lesson in my class includes a statement on my objective “To render competent and dedicated service and strive to be part of the success story of every organization/person I may work for”. My most positive teaching philosophy is taken from the works of Steve Covey in “the seven habits of highly effective people” and carved into three “H” principles of mine: Holiness, Honesty, and Hardworking”, which I feel are helping me treat each student with care and fairness they deserve. As a result, most students I teach feel safe discussing their challenges with me and take inspiration from me.