Date: February 20, 2026
Location: 14A Washington Mews, New York, NY, 10003
Time: 5:30 pm
Overview: A Mile in My Shoes, the acclaimed traveling exhibition from the Empathy Museum, came to NYU in Fall 2025. It featured accounts from their famous collection alongside stories contributed by members of the NYU community, the exhibition explores our shared humanity through quiet moments of listening.
Through a collaboration between the Office of the President and Africa House, we will be amplifying one of the NYU voices featured, Prof. Offiong Aqua. Join us for an evening of insightful conversations as we walk a mile in Prof. Offiong Aqua's shoes.
Speakers:
Professor Offiong Aqua holds a joint appointment as Clinical Professor in the Departments of Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, and Communicative Sciences and Disorders at New York University. Born in Nigeria, he earned his M.D. from the Faculty of Medicine at Friendship University in Moscow in 1986, followed by postgraduate training in Facio-Maxillary Surgery. His career spans clinical practice, academic leadership, and global health advocacy across Africa, Europe, and the United States.
Professor Aqua is a faculty affiliate of NYU Africa House, where his work focuses on strengthening health systems and advancing global African health research. He played a leading role in establishing NYU’s academic partnership with the Ghana Ministry of Health, resulting in the launch of an NYU Steinhardt health-related course abroad in Accra, Ghana. A recipient of NYU’s Steinhardt Teaching Excellence Award, he continues to collaborate with senior faculty across NYU on international initiatives addressing emergency medicine and health systems development.
Beyond academia, Professor Aqua has conducted a landmark Health System Audit for Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria—one of the country’s most economically significant regions—providing a framework still used for healthcare planning today. He is also the creator and host of The Offiong Aqua Show, a widely followed podcast that examines governance, accountability, and civic life in Nigeria through informed, independent commentary. His life and work reflect a sustained commitment to education, equity, and the building of durable institutions across borders.
Professor Yaw Nyarko is Professor of Economics at New York University (NYU) and the Director of NYU Africa House and the Center for Technology and Economic Development (CTED), as well as Co-Director of the Development Research Institute (DRI). As Co-Director of DRI, he was awarded the 2009 BBVA Frontiers in Knowledge Award on Economic Development Cooperation. He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society, and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).
His research interests focus on the areas of economic development, theoretical economics, models of human capital as engines of economic growth, brain drain and skills acquisition, labor economics, and migration. His current research focuses on technology and economic development, commodities exchanges and markets in Africa, and determinants and returns of labor migration from South Asia in the UAE, as well as the impacts of various policy measures on the mobility of labor within the UAE.
He is the Chair of the Econometric Society Africa Regional Standing Committee. He has served as a consultant to organizations including the African Development Bank, the World Bank, the United Nations, and the Social Science Research Council. As the former Vice Provost of NYU, he managed a portfolio that included the oversight and establishment of campuses in Abu Dhabi, Accra, and Shanghai. Yaw Nyarko received his B.A. from the University of Ghana and a M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from Cornell University.
Barr. Udom Inoyo holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science (1981) and LL.B in Law (1987) both from the University of Calabar. He was called to the Nigerian Bar as Solicitor & Advocate of the Supreme Court in 1988. He’s also an alumnus of Lagos Business School and Thunderbird School of Global Management, Arizona, USA.
Barr. Udom started his career with Mobil Producing Company in July 1989 in Lagos, Nigeria as Empolyee Relations Coordinator, but by 2000 he became Compensation and Benefits Advisor, ExxonMobil Europe, Africa and Middle East Center of Expertise in Brussels, Belgium, where he hadresponsibility for the national salary programs of 10 African and 4 European countries. In 2001, Udom’s returned to Nigeria as Manager Human Resources Policies and Programs for Mobil Producing Nigeria. By 2004, he was appointed to the board of Mobil Producing Nigeria, the second largest oil producing company in Nigeria as a Executive Director. As of 2006, Barr. Udom was the In-Country Human Resources Manager for ExxonMobil subsidiary companies in Nigeria. In this role, he has direct responsibility for over 2,000 employees of the 3 ExxonMobil companies and approximately 3,000 personnels of various third party contractors. Mr Udom Inoyo has been actively engaged on activities of oil and gas sector in Nigeria.
Furthermore, in 2007, Mr Udom Inoyo established Inoyo Toro Foundation – a platform to advance the recognition of public secondary teachers and students mentorship in Akwa Ibom State, because of his zeal for education in 2004, he opened a library in his village Ikot Okoro Ubium to provide learning aids and crate access to research and development of reading and writing skills in public secondary school students. In 2015, he facilitated the start-up of the International Center for Energy and Environmental Sustainability Research in University of Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.
Dr. John Olakunle Mabayoje is a distinguished Nigerian-American physician whose career spans more than four decades of clinical practice across Nigeria and the United States. A graduate of the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), he completed extensive postgraduate medical training in New York. He has practiced for over 31 years as an Emergency Medicine specialist, rising to senior leadership roles including County Director of Emergency Medical Services and Director of Emergency Services at a Critical Access Hospital in Indiana, where he contributed to the strengthening of rural emergency and primary care systems.
During his formative years at the University of Ife, Dr. Mabayoje served as Students’ Union President in the mid-1970s, reflecting an early and enduring commitment to leadership, public service, and institutional responsibility. He comes from a foundational medical lineage in Nigeria—his father, Professor Oluyemi Mabayoje, was a pioneering cardiologist and a founding figure of postgraduate medical education in West Africa—an influence that continues to shape his commitment to academic medicine, mentorship, and service. Beyond clinical practice, Dr. Mabayoje remains deeply engaged in community-centered health innovation, integrating medicine, nutrition, and sustainable development in both African and global contexts. He is a clinician-scholar who values collegiality, institutional excellence, and the university’s role in advancing human health.