Omolola is a biomedical informatician and writer. Biomedical informatics is a relatively new and exciting field that melds computer science and biomedicine. The professional society for US-based informaticians is the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), which is part of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA). Omolola’s research examines how artificial intelligence (AI) and telehealth can be used to improve healthcare in medically underserved and under-resourced settings.
Even though she was drawn to math and science at an early age, Omolola was always a voracious reader; her mother taught African and African-American literature at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria and so there were hundreds of intriguing books jammed into bookshelves around her house. Bored with her Enid Blyton collection, she switched to reading James Baldwin, Flora Nwapa, Richard Wright, Buchi Emecheta, Alice Walker, Chinua Achebe, Toni Morrison, Gloria Naylor, Bessie Head and Adaora Lily Ulasi. Although she was too young to understand much of what she was reading, the books opened up fascinating new worlds and fostered an unquenchable curiosity about different people and places.
Omolola was born and raised in Ibadan, Nigeria. She now lives in Los Angeles, California with her husband. Her short story, “Area Boy Rescue” was a finalist for the 2009 PEN/Studzinski Literary Award. It appears in the collection, New Writing from Africa 2009. She is currently working on a collection of linked short stories.
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