Ghanaian-American engineer Dr. Thomas Owusu Mensah has died at the age of 74.
Dr Mensah is credited with significant contributions to nanotechnology to boost fiber optic technology in data transmission to revolutionise internet connectivity.
Dr Mensah died on March 27, 2024, after a short illness at the Catholic Hope Exchange Hospital in Kumasi, Ghana.
In his last days, he kept preaching the establishment of a high-speed train system to improve transportation in Ghana.
He had 14 patents and was inducted into the US National Academy of Inventors in 2015.
In 2017, Dr Mensah served as Editor-in-Chief of the textbook Nanotechnology Commercialization, published by John Wiley & Sons.
Dr. Mensah’s work is credited with making fiber optics a more practical and cost-effective solution for data transmission. During his time at Corning Glass Works, he revolutionised the manufacturing process for fiber optic cables.
Previously limited by speed and cost, Dr. Mensah’s innovations increased production speed to 20 meters per second by 1985, and further advancements followed. This breakthrough significantly reduced the cost of fiber optics, making them competitive with traditional copper cables.
His contributions extended beyond speed; Dr. Mensah’s advancements in manufacturing processes also made fiber optic cables more affordable to produce, paving the way for their widespread adoption in modern communication systems.
Dr Mensah was a recipient of several awards, including Turner’s Trumpet Award for Fiber Optics Innovation, the Percy L. Julian Award, the Golden Torch Award, the William Grimes Award, and the Eminent Engineers Award by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers(AIChE).
He was also a member of the AIChE 100.
In December 2017, he received the Kwame Nkrumah African Genius Award in Science/Technology and Innovation in Ghana.
Dr Mensah delivered the 10th R. P. Baffour Lecture at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology on November 23, 2017, where he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree after the lecture.
In November 2015, he received the International Business Leadership Award from the African Leadership Magazine in Atlanta Georgia, USA.
He has been profiled in Ebony Magazine‘s edition of October 2006 and Chemical Engineering Progress Magazine‘s edition of October 2008, March 2009 and March 2015.
Dr Mensah served on the visiting committee in Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1988 to 1992.
He has also published four books: Fiber Optics Engineering in 1987, Superconductor Engineering in 1992, his autobiography The Right Stuff Comes in Black, Too in 2013, and Nanotechnology Commercialization in 2017.
In the first quarter of 2015, the government of the State of Georgia in the US passed a House Resolution to commend Mensah and his works.