FUTA Alumna Oluwaseunnla Adelusi Wins Prestigious Vanier Scholarship at Canadian University
Oluwaseunnla Adelusi, a graduate of the Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA), has been awarded the prestigious Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship, valued at $50,000 per year for three years.
Chris Oyeoku Okafor 
An alumna of the Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA), Oluwaseunnla Adelusi, along with five other doctoral students from Université de Sherbrooke, Canada, has been awarded the prestigious Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship. This accolade is in recognition of their innovative projects and outstanding academic careers.
The Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships (Vanier CGS) program, named after Major-General Georges P. Vanier, the first francophone Governor General of Canada, aims to attract highly qualified doctoral students to Canadian institutions. Each scholarship is valued at $50,000 per year for three years during doctoral studies.
Oluwaseunnla's winning doctoral project is titled "A Coffee-Making Method to Improve Waste Gasification." Her research focuses on the torrefaction process, commonly associated with coffee production, to enhance the gasification of municipal solid waste (MSW). By examining the combustible properties of materials in refuse-derived fuel (RDF) from non-recyclable MSW, she aims to address the complications arising from the heterogeneous nature of these wastes. Her study includes advanced characterization techniques and aims to design an efficient feeding device for the gasification process. Her work is supervised by Professor Stéphane Moreau.
In response to receiving the award, Oluwaseunnla expressed her excitement: "Working with municipal waste has been a most insightful experience so far, and I am optimistic about the future prospects in my PhD research at UdeS and Enerkem. Therefore, I'm delighted to have been awarded this prestigious Vanier Scholarship, which boosts my confidence and encourages me to pursue my research and career goals."
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Oluwaseunnla Adelusi graduated with a bachelor's degree in Metallurgical & Materials Engineering from FUTA in 2018, where she was president of the University Debate Club and a notable student leader. In 2020, she received the prestigious Erasmus Scholarship, leading to a Joint Master’s Degree from the University of Leeds-UK, University of Ljubljana-Slovenia, and Luleå University of Technology-Sweden. During her Erasmus studies, she earned multiple scholarships and was recognized by the European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education, and Youth.
In 2022, she received an award and scholarship from the Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers (STLE) for her contributions to the field of tribology. Since beginning her doctoral studies at Université de Sherbrooke, Oluwaseunnla has won the Bourse Jean Morin twice and was the 2023 champion of the Three Minute Thesis Competition at her university, also becoming a finalist at the Eastern Regional Three Minute Thesis Competition in Canada.
Oluwaseunnla is passionate about sustainability and is focused on producing biofuels from non-recyclable MSW. She conducts her research at the Enerkem R&D Centre and at Université de Sherbrooke in an academic-industrial collaboration. In addition to her academic pursuits, she is a strong advocate for women's rights and gender equality, volunteering with the Erasmus Mundus Association (EMA) as Nigeria's Country Representative.
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FUTA's Vice Chancellor, Professor Adenike Oladiji, congratulated Oluwaseunnla on her remarkable achievement. "This is a major milestone and worth celebrating. I note with delight your tenacity in the pursuit of your dream and the many accolades won. Through this, you are projecting the name of our institution, FUTA, on the global stage. I congratulate you and wish you more wins and success in your future endeavors," she said.
Oluwaseunnla's accomplishment brings great pride to FUTA and serves as an inspiration to current and future students of the university.
