Everything to know about Ghana’s favourite quiz mistress, Prof. Elsie Kaufmann

She is the calm, authoritative voice that has made generations of Ghanaian schoolchildren nervous and proud at the same time. But behind the television lights and the sharp questions of the National Science and Maths Quiz lies one of the most decorated scientists Ghana has ever produced.

Elsie Akosua Biraa Effah Kaufmann was born on 7 September 1969 in Accra, Ghana, and hails from Assin in the Central Region. Growing up, she was made to study hard under the strict guidance of her parents, who were both teachers. That household discipline planted the seeds of an academic career that would eventually place her name in the record books of global engineering.

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She had her secondary education at Aburi Girls' Senior High School, where she studied General Science, before earning a scholarship in 1988 to pursue an International Baccalaureate Diploma at the United World College of the Atlantic in Wales. From there, her academic journey crossed the Atlantic.

She went on to earn a Bachelor of Science in Engineering, a Master of Science in Engineering, and a PhD in Biomedical Engineering, all at the University of Pennsylvania. She worked as a Teaching Assistant at the Department of Biomedical Engineering while studying for her doctorate, before completing postdoctoral study at Rutgers University in the United States, where she worked as a research supervisor in the Department of Chemistry.

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With a Ivy League PhD and a postdoctoral fellowship in the United States, the path of least resistance would have been to stay abroad. She chose otherwise. After studying Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania, she made a deliberate choice to return home, driven by a clear vision. In her own words: "I realised that the difference I could make was to bring the subject to Ghana."

That decision changed the course of biomedical engineering education in Ghana entirely.

Before joining the University of Ghana in 2001, Prof. Elsie completed postdoctoral study at Rutgers University. Upon her return, she did not just join an existing department, she created one. That decision led her to become the founding head of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Ghana. She has since helped to establish other pioneering programmes in Biomedical Engineering, Physiotherapy, Radiography, Audiology, Medical Physics and Prosthetics and Orthotics.

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She became the Dean of the School of Engineering Sciences at the University of Ghana in August 2022, the first woman to hold the position. The trailblazing continues: every role she has held has carried a "first" attached to it.

For most Ghanaians, Professor Kaufmann is first and foremost the face of the National Science and Maths Quiz, the annual secondary school competition that has become one of the most watched television events in the country. In 2006, Elsie Kaufmann took over hosting the National Science and Maths Quiz from Marian Ewurama Addy, who hosted from 1993 to 2000, and Eureka Emefa Adomako, who hosted from 2001 to 2005.

She has managed to make the show one of the most-watched educational contests in the country, taking over from other quiz mistresses from the quarter-final stage up until the final. Her calm composure, precise diction, and quiet authority on screen have made her a household figure, a role model for young girls who see a brilliant woman at the centre of science on national television every year.

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The most significant recognition of her career came in November 2025. Professor Elsie Effah Kaufmann was formally inducted as an International Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering at a distinguished ceremony held in London, becoming the first Ghanaian ever to receive this prestigious honour.

Since the Academy's founding in 1976, she is the first Ghanaian to earn the post-nominal FREng, and in 2025, she joined an elite group of only nine International Fellows elected worldwide. The induction ceremony saw Professor Effah Kaufmann sign the Academy's historic roll book alongside some of the world's most distinguished engineering luminaries,a symbolic act that etches her name, and Ghana's, into the annals of global engineering excellence.

Her official citation from the Academy reads: "Professor Elsie Effah Kaufmann has founded pioneering biomedical engineering programmes and inspired thousands of children through education and outreach."

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Her trophy cabinet reflects a career built on consistent excellence. She received the University of Ghana Best Teacher Award for the Sciences in 2009, the International Women's Forum Leadership Foundation Fellowship in 2011, and the Impact Africa Summit Ghana Laureate for Education in 2017. In 2018, she became the first female recipient of the National Society of Black Engineers Golden Torch Award for International Academic Leadership. She was elected a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2022, and in 2025 received the Women's Choice Awards Africa, Her Legacy Honours in STEM Empowerment.

She has also participated in Executive Education programmes at Harvard Business School and INSEAD.

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Professor Kaufmann is a mother of three, two daughters and a son, with her former white American husband. She revealed in a television interview that she had married a white man during her time in the United States, and when asked why she did not marry a Ghanaian man, she humorously replied, "They didn't come." She is divorced but has spoken openly about remaining open to love.

Her legacy, however, is already assured. The Kaufmann name carries enormous weight in Ghana ,and in November 2025, it was inscribed permanently into the record books of the world's most prestigious engineering institution. Ghana's quiz mistress turned out to be something far greater: a world-class scientist who chose her country when she did not have to, and built something that will outlast all of us.