Kalu Mosto Onuoha




Kalu Mosto Onuoha is a Nigerian Professor of Geology. In 2020, he became the President of the Nigerian Academy of Science after previously serving as its treasurer and Vice President in 2013.

Education and career

Kalu Mosto Onuoha was born on the 17th of July 1947 in Akanu Ohafia, Abia State. Onuoha received early education in Nigeria. He attended Lorànd Eötvös University in Budapest, Hungary where he majored in Geophysics, obtaining the PhD degree in 1978. After a decade of studies and post-doctoral research work in Europe, he returned to Nigeria in 1980. He was employed by University of Nigeria, Nsuka as a Lecturer in the Department of Geology in 1980. Onuoha excelled in his lecturing job at UNN rising to the position of Head of the Department of Geology in 1987. In October 1988, he earned a promotion to the rank of a full Professor of Geology.
In 1998, Onuoha was inducted as a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Science. He is also a Fellow of the Nigerian Mining & Geosciences Society, Fellow of the Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists. He is a member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, and also of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists.
At UNN, Onuoha supervised and mentored many undergraduate and postgraduate students. Several of his students excelled in their careers with many of them rising to top positions in the oil and gas industry while some of those in academic rose to the rank of professors in different universities within and outside Nigeria
In 1991, he was appointed Chair of Petroleum Geology, at the University of Calabar, becoming the first Professor at the Mobil Producing Nigeria from 1991 to 1992. Onuoha took a leave of absence from the UNN in 1996 to serve as Technology Development Adviser at the Shell Petroleum Development Company Limited, Port Harcourt. He vacated this position in 2002, and returned to UNN. In January 2003, Onuoha was appointed to the Shell/NNPC Chair of Geology serving in this capacity until December 2012. He was a deputy Vice-Chancellor of University of Nigeria, Nsuka between 2005 and 2009.. In January 2013, he was appointed to the PTDF Chair of Petroleum Geology at the UNN.
Vice President of Nigerian Academy of Science. and Deputy Vice Chancellor of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
He was formerly a technology adviser to Shell Petroleum Development Company.
In 2020 he was the President of the Nigerian Academy of Science. He will be succeeded by Prof. Ekanem Ikpi Braide who is the Pro-Chancellor of Arthur Jarvis University.