Ornella Sathoud: Meet the Ghanaian female boxer who holds PhD in Chemistry

Despite spending much of her adult life in the United States (US), she represents Ghana, having been born to a Ghanaian mother and a Congolese father.

Dr. Sathoud had her education in the US, where she studied Analytical Chemistry and graduated with a PhD in the course.

The University of Delaware graduate fell in love with boxing along the way and has since adopted the sport as a hobby.

Dr. Sathoud is a typical sportswoman who started out as a track and field athlete before briefly playing volleyball as well.

In a previous interview with Ghanaweb, she disclosed that both of her parents were into sports, which influenced her career path.

Dr. Ornella Sathoud Pulse Ghana

“I wanted to do sports because I did sports growing up. My mother was a runner and my dad did judo,” she said in that interview.

“Growing up I did volleyball and running but my mom told me I should try boxing maybe I will like it so I tried it. I want to be productive so I told my coach I want to be ready to fight.

“So I started with kickboxing and I had three fights but since we couldn’t find any kickboxing fight he told me let’s do boxing, so I kept up with it and I said we should try the Olympics and he said before we start Olympics we have to start somewhere.”

Explaining how she ventured into boxing, she told Ghanaweb: “I went online and called the Ghana Boxing Federation, I had my mother’s sister in Ghana who helped me to be in touch with people who will help me reach out to the president and I was able to reach out to him and he told me I had to come for a tryout with the team and apparently I did well and now I’m in the team.”

Sathoud is a member of Ghana's boxing team at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham but also works as a process engineer.

She will begin her journey towards winning a medal with a women's middleweight contest against Kerry Davis of England at the Round of 16 stage.