FeMS Empowerment Award Winner Josephine Ouma Discusses Her Current Research in MS
In this first part of our interview with Females in Mass Spectrometry (FeMS) Empowerment Award Winner Josephine Ouma, we discuss her PhD research and what inspired her to join FeMS.
March is Women's History Month. This month, we are celebrating the work of women in analytical chemistry. As part of our coverage for this important month, we recently sat down with Josephine Ouma of Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) in Kenya, who is one of the Q1 2025 recipients of the FeMS Empowerment Award. Organizations such as Females in Mass Spectrometry (FeMS), which is a community-led initiative to create a network of support for women in the field of mass spectrometry, work to create communities where female analytical chemists can flourish (1). The Empowerment Award is presented to members of the group that demonstrate excellence both in their work and their support of women in science (2).
Ouma is a PhD student and a research assistant in the Mass and Separations Laboratory at the Department of Chemistry, JKUAT. Her research interests are in the applications of chromatography and mass spectrometry techniques in environmental, food and water quality analysis. Some of the projects she has worked on include monitoring of pharmaceutical and personal care products in the environment, pesticide residues in food, monitoring wildlife poisoning cases, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in air emissions. For her PhD, Ouma is working on monitoring cyanotoxins in freshwater systems in Kenya. Her eventual goal is to develop liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS) analytical methods for rapid identification and quantification of toxin levels locally during cyanobacterial bloom formation episodes, to provide monitoring agencies with real time information for timely health advisories to mitigate exposure hazards for susceptible communities.
In this first part of our interview with Ouma, we learned about how she first got involved in mass spectrometry and FeMS. Additionally, she gave us a synopsis about her PhD work, explaining the importance of using mass spectrometric techniques in her home country and the importance of spreading such information within her community.
Please stay tuned for more from our time with Ouma and keep an eye out for more content from FeMS.
References
(1) Home. FeMS 2025. https://femalesinms.com/ (accessed 2025-3-24)
(2) Acevedo, A. Advancing Bladder Cancer Research with Mass Spectrometry: A FeMS Interview with Marta Relvas-Santos. LCGC International 2024. https://www.chromatographyonline.com/view/advancing-bladder-cancer-research-with-mass-spectrometry-a-fems-interview-with-marta-relvas-santos (accessed 2025-3-24)
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