CSE group hosts scholar Ugochi Adaku Okengwu through African Presidential Fellowship Program

Renowned scholar Dr. Ugochi Adaku Okengwu of University of Port Harcourt is working on campus as a guest of CSE through the University of Michigan African Presidential Fellowship Program (UMAPS). Hosted by Janice M. Jenkins Collegiate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering and Michigan AI Lab Director Rada Mihalcea, Okengwu will be furthering her work in using natural language processing (NLP) for sentiment analysis of climate change trends

Okengwu has previously conducted research into intelligent rule-based systems for diagnosing eye diseases and user activity modeling for improving security in smart homes for the elderly. Most recently, she has aided in the construction of a Quality of System (QoS) framework intended to deliver a better quality of service to users of streaming applications.

As a visiting scholar at U-M, she will be presenting her research, “Sentiment Analysis on Climate Change Using Deep Learning,” which examines gathering textual data from social media and using computational techniques to determine the polarity of emotions people exhibit during climate change discourse, especially in the Niger Delta area of Nigeria. Her intended project goal is to create awareness about climate change using the outcome of the analysis. 

Her future work plans include understanding the impact of climate change and how it affects different communities allowing researchers to better understand connections between climate change and healthcare implications, such as widespread pandemics like COVID-19.

Okengwu earned her undergraduate degree in Computer Science from the University of Uyo in 2000 and later obtained her PhD in the field from University of Port Harcourt in 2015. In addition to her participation in UMAPS via the Michigan AI Lab, Okengwu is a member of The Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD) and has held a fellowship at the Institute for Training Science and Sports Informatics at German Sport University, Cologne as a TWAS-DFG Visiting Scientist.