Chinedum Osuji

Chinedum Osuji (born December 15, 1976) is a former Taekwondo Olympian and current professor of chemical and environmental engineering at Yale University.

Chinedum Osuji was born in Trinidad and Tobago and lived there until he began his education in the United States. He studied Materials Science and Engineering, receiving his Bachelor's degree from Cornell University in 1999, and his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2003.

After receiving his PhD, he worked at Surface Logix Inc., a start-up company, and then from 2005-2007 was a post-doc at Harvard University. In 2007, he joined the faculty of Yale University.

In 2000, while at MIT, Chinedum Osuji co-founded the MIT sport taekwondo team.

He represented Trinidad and Tobago at the World Taekwondo Championships in the 2001, 2003, and 2005 games.

In 2003, he received a silver medal at the Pan American Games qualifier.

In 2004, Chinedum qualified to compete in taekwondo men's 80 kg at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, but was defeated by Rashad Ahmadov of Azerbaijan in the preliminary round.

He competed in the 2007 Pan American Games, receiving a bronze medal and then announced his retirement from future international competitions.

In 2007, after completing his post-doc at Harvard University, he joined the faculty of Yale University and is now an associate professor in the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering. His work focuses on the study of the structure, dynamics, and self-assembly of soft matter for use in applications such as organic solar cells and microfluidic bio-assays.

He was a recipient of an NSF CAREER award in 2009.