KNUST launches Nyansapo Photonics School and GPOL laboratory

The Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) has inaugurated the Nyansapo Photonics School, an international training initiative designed to provide hands-on optics training to students across Ghana and the African region. The six-day program, held from September 21 to 26, brought together 38 emerging scientists from six African nations alongside researchers from Africa, Europe, and North America.

Alongside the school, the university commissioned the Ghana Photonics and Optics Laboratory (GPOL) within the KNUST Department of Physics. The facility is intended to serve as a hub for teaching, research, and outreach in optics and photonics, covering applications in health, agriculture, industry, and the environment. The project was led by principal investigator Dr Akyana Britwum and technical lead Dr Michael Kweku Edem Donkor, with support from SPIE.