chemistry

Ivan Addae Mensah

Ivan Addae Mensah is a chemistry topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Ivan Addae Mensah rather than just read about it. In short: Ivan Addae-Mensah, (born 10 January 1942) is a Ghanaian chemist and university administrator who served as the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Legon from 1996 to 2002. He is an Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at the same institution.

Key takeaways

Ivan Addae Mensah belongs to chemistry; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Ivan Addae Mensah to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Ivan Addae Mensah from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Ivan Addae-Mensah, (born 10 January 1942) is a Ghanaian chemist and university administrator who served as the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Legon from 1996 to 2002. He is an Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at the same institution. He is a Life Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the Ghana Chemical Society.

Early life and education Addae-Mensah is a member of the Nzema ethnic group. He was educated at Achimota School and studied Chemistry at the University of Ghana, Legon, receiving his bachelor's degree with first class honours. He also obtained a Master of Science (M.Sc.) degree in chemistry from the same university. Between 1967 and 1970, he pursued his PhD at Churchill College, Cambridge.

Career In October 1970, he was appointed a lecturer in Chemistry at the University of Ghana, Legon and rose through the ranks to become a full Professor. A Chartered Chemist (C. Chem.), his area of specialty is medicinal chemistry and pharmacology. He also worked at the Drug Research Unit, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Ife in Nigeria and the Faculty of Pharmacy University of Nairobi, Kenya. He was an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Fellow at the Institute of Pharmacy and Food Chemistry University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany from 1982 to 1984. Ivan Addae-Mensah is a Life Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. He is also a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences and was also the organisation's vice president for the Sciences for four years. He is a Fellow of the Ghana Chemical Society. In 1993, he was appointed the Dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of Ghana. Between 1996 and 2002, he served as the Vice-Chancellor of the same institution. After his retirement as a university administrator, he returned to the classroom and laboratory to continue teaching and research. He has served as a knowledge consultant to several domestic and international institutions including the World Health Organization (Headquarters, TDR and Afro Region), UNESCO, UNFPA, the European Union (EU), the Ghana Statistical Service and several other national and international organisations. Since 1988, he has been a member of the WHO Expert Committee on the International Pharmacopoeia and Pharmaceutical Preparations and Drug Quality Assurance of Medicines chairing meetings of the Committee numerous times. He was a member of the Expert Advisory Committee of the WHO/TDR/EU- funded malaria drug development initiative, and the TDR-ANDI Drug and Diagnostics Development Initiative. He is a member of the WHO-AFRO African Advisory Committee on Health Research and Development (AACHRD), and was involved in various meetings of AACHRD and WHO-AFRO to study, review and make recommendations on the WHO-CEWG report on Health research and development (R&D), Financing and Coordination. Addae-Mensah served as the General Secretary of the Peoples National Party, PNC and Presidential Advisor to Hilla Limann. From 1980 to 1982, he was the Chairman of the Volta River Authority. He was appointed the Chairman of the National Petroleum Authority, Member of the National Council for Tertiary Education and the Council of the University of Mines and Technology at Tarkwa. Since 2001, Addae-Mensah has been a Member of the Board of the United Nations University Institute of Natural Resources in Africa. He has been a champion of gender equity in educational opportunities as well as social mobility for the underprivileged.

Honours, awards and legacy Ivan Addae-Mensah has received several honorary doctorate degrees from the University of Ghana (Doctor of Science–honoris causa, 2003), New York University (Doctor of Humane Letters, 2002) and Soka University, Japan (Highest Honour, 1998). Under the leadership of John Kufuor, Addae-Mensah was awarded the State Honour of Companion of the Order of the Volta (CV) by the Government of Ghana in 2006 for his contributions to education and public service. In 2016, the University of Ghana, Legon honoured him by naming a road intersection on its campus after him in recognition to his academic contributions and service to the institution.

Personal life He is married with 4 children. He is the father of Kojo Addae-Mensah, the current Group CEO of Databank.

Books Family Background and Educational Opportunities in Ghana (Ghana Universities Press, 1973) Limann and Ghana (PNP, 1981) Towards a Rational Scientific Basis for Herbal Medicine: A Phytochemist's Two-decade Contribution (University of Ghana, Legon, 1992) Education in Ghana: A Tool for Social Mobility Or Social Stratification?(Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2000) Hilla Limann: Scholar, Diplomat, Statesman – A Biography (Africa Biographies Consult, 2016) My Life: A Historical Narrative – Autobiography of Ivan Addae-Mensah (Digibooks Ghana Limited, 2023)

Bibliography

Selected scientific works His published works include:

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Ivan Addae Mensah

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Ivan Addae Mensah claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In chemistry, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Ivan Addae Mensah before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Ivan Addae Mensah ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Ivan Addae Mensah

In research: Ivan Addae Mensah appears in chemistry research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Ivan Addae Mensah in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Ivan Addae Mensah is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1942 births, 20th-century Ghanaian scientists, 20th-century chemists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Ivan Addae Mensah outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Ivan Addae Mensah in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Ivan Addae Mensah means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Ivan Addae Mensah out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Ivan Addae Mensah in simple terms?

Why does Ivan Addae Mensah matter?

Because it connects several chemistry ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Ivan Addae Mensah?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Ivan Addae Mensah.