Chukwuma Okolie
City Data Advisor
AMALI Data Programme
Chukwuma J. Okolie is a geospatial professional, data scientist and licensed surveyor with about 14 years of experience in academia and the public and non-profit sectors. He holds a PhD in geomatics from the University of Cape Town, and his research interests lie in data fusion, geospatial artificial intelligence, GIScience, environmental modelling, and climate change. He is also an Associate Fellow with the Higher Education Academy (UK). Chukwuma is currently a data advisor with the AMALI Data Programme, through which he provides coaching and technical assistance to African mayors and their staff on data and performance management.
In 2023, he was lead data advisor to the cities of Kitwe and Lusaka in Zambia, where he facilitated the creation of data inventories, data-quality assessments, and the launch of data reporting tools for improved solid-waste management. He has received several awards, including the xyHT ‘40 under 40 Geospatial Leaders’ award (2017), and the Space Generation Advisory Council – Space Technology for Earth Applications (SGAC-STEA) project group Member of the Year award (2022). Chukwuma has worked as a lecturer at several universities, teaching courses in digital mapping, geographic information systems, remote sensing, photogrammetry, land surveying, and technical communication.
He has also supervised several student research theses and is a collaborator in the ‘Climate adaptation in the Gulf of Guinea’ research project at Harvard University. He has published over 80 papers in peer-reviewed journals, conference proceedings, and other media. He is an active reviewer for scientific journals, and has led several research collaborations with international partners. Chukwuma is currently ranked No. 11 among the top 500 authors by scholarly output at the University of Lagos, based on Elsevier’s SciVal author ranking (2020 to 2023).