Bennet Omalu

Bennet Omalu
Bennet Omalu in 2015
Born	September 1968 (age 48) Nnokwa, Idemili South, Nigeria
Residence	Lodi, California
Nationality	Nigerian and naturalized USA citizen
Alma mater	University of Nigeria, Nsukka (MBBS, 1990) University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health (MPH, Epidemiology, 2004) Carnegie Mellon University (MBA, 2008)
Occupation	Medical Doctor, Forensic Pathologist, Professor, Medical Examiner
Known for	The first to discover and publish findings of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in American football players while working at the Allegheny County Coroner's Office in Pittsburgh.
Spouse(s)	Prema Mutiso
Children	2

Bennet Ifeakandu Omalu (born September 1968) is a Nigerian-American physician, forensic pathologist, and neuropathologist who was the first to discover and publish findings of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in American football players while working at the Allegheny County Coroner's Office in Pittsburgh. He later became the chief medical examiner for San Joaquin County, California, and is a professor at the University of California, Davis, Department of Medical Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.

Omalu was born on Nnokwa, Idemili South, Anambra in southeastern Nigeria, in September 30 1968, the sixth of seven siblings. He was born during the Nigerian Civil War, which caused his family to flee from their home in the predominantly Igbo village of Enugu-Ukwu in southeastern Nigeria. They returned two years after Omalu’s birth. Omalu’s mother was a seamstress and his father a civil mining engineer and community leader in Enugu-Ukwu. The family name, Omalu, is a shortened form of the surname, Onyemalukwube, which translates to "he (she) who knows, speak."

Omalu began primary school at age three, and earned entrance into the Federal Government College Enugu for secondary school. He attended medical school starting at age 16 at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. After graduating with a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) in June 1990, he completed a clinical internship, followed by three years of service work doctoring in the mountainous city of Jos. He became disillusioned with Nigeria after presidential candidate Moshood Abiola failed to win the Nigerian presidency during an inconclusive election in 1993 and began to search for scholarship opportunities in the United States. Omalu first came to Seattle, Washington in 1994 to complete an epidemiology fellowship at the University of Washington. In 1995, he left Seattle for New York City, where he joined Columbia University’s Harlem Hospital Center for a residency training program in anatomic and clinical pathology.