Bio: Prof. James Ben Hayfron-Acquah

Prof James B. Hayfron-Acquah

Prof. James Ben Hayfron-Acquah

Prof James B. Hayfron-Acquah is the Head of the Department of Computer Science. He had his first degree from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Computer Science in the year 1991. He then proceeded to have his Master degree at the Shanghai University of Science and Technology (SUST), Shanghai-China in Computer Science and Application in 1996. He obtained his PhD in 2003 from Southampton University in the UK. He joined KNUST in March 1996 as a lecturer. He was promoted to a Senior Lecturer in the year 2004 and to Associate Professor in 2015.

Since joining KNUST, he has been a Head of Department cumulatively for about a decade and has served on several university committees. His research interest area includes Image Processing, Gait Recognition (Biometrics), Computer Programming, Cloud computing, etc.

He has so far graduated six PhD holders over the past five (5) years and several MSC/MPhil students. He is currently supervising several postgraduate students. He has several publications to his credit.

Prof. Effah Kaufmann is a Board member of the African Gifted Foundation Ghana (African Science Academy) and the British International School-Ghana. She is the current President of the Ghana Society of Biomedical Engineers.

Some of his awards include but not limited to the Emerald Highly Recommended Award, 2004 for the publication: Nixon, M. S. J. N. Carter, M. G. Grant, L. Gordon and Hayfron - Acquah, J. B, Automatic Recognition by Gait: progress and prospects. Sensor Review, 24(3), pp. 323 - 331, 2003. Commonwealth Scholarship, 1999-2003, administered by the scholarship secretariat, Accra to pursue a Doctorate programme in Computer Science at the University of Southampton, Southampton -United Kingdom, Ghana - China government scholarship, 1993-1996 administered by Scholarship Secretariat, Accra to pursue Master&s degree programme in Computer Science at the Shanghai University of Science and Technology, Shanghai-China.

Some of his achievements are:

  • Consultant for the National Accreditation Board on Programme Accreditation in Computer Science and related programmes since 2004. Has also been involved with Academic Auditing of Tertiary Institutions in the country.
  • United Nations Development Programme (UNDP-Ghana) on Implementing a Computerised National Firearms Registry System Software (Contract Number 2007/SSA/000106)
  • Member, Assessment of conversion of Accra, Cape Coast and Takoradi Polytechnics into Technical Universities
  • Member of a 4-member committee that developed a proposal for UNESCO-HEWLETT PACKARD PROJECT, March-June 2017
  • Member of a 4-member sub-committee on Exhibition of the 1 st African Regional Conference of Vice-Chancellor, Provosts, and Deans of Science, Engineering, and Technology: (COVIDSET 2005), Oct - Nov. 2005
  • He worked with other members from the Engineering Department of KNUST in handling the Y2K problem for the Electricity Company of Ghana.

Associations/Affiliations (Contribution and Current Position):

  • The British Machine Vision Association
  • United Kingdom