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Graduate Teaching Assistant
The Ohio State University
Abigail Aba Mensah, MS
Graduate Student in Human Nutrition | Teaching Assistant
Human Nutrition Program | College of Education and Human Ecology
The Ohio State University
Abigail Aba Mensah is a Graduate Teaching Assistant in the human nutrition program of The Ohio State University. She graduated from the University of Cape Coast, Ghana, and earned her BSc in biochemistry. Aba Mensah worked as a research assistant at the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research; bacteriology department, where she researched the Neglected Tropical Disease; Yaws. Her research was primarily focused on the Azithromycin resistance of Treponema pallidum subspecies pertenue. After a year of work, she moved to the virology department and worked as a COVID-19 front liner. She is also among the first workers of the Kotoka International Airport COVID-19 testing center of her country, Ghana. Abigail's research interest focuses on diet and disease risk, food microbiology, and food safety. Her current research, which focuses on "eliminating human pathogen contamination (Listeria monocytogenes and Salmonella spp.) from lettuce grown in Nutrient Film Technique (NFT) hydroponic system for improved food safety, and nutrition," aims to establish standards and protocols for sanitation of hydroponic systems and prevent crop contamination with human pathogens under the supervision of Dr. Ilic Sanja. She was a presenter of the 2022 EHE, Woody Hayes, RKS, and ASM conferences, presenting her findings to promote hydroponic food safety awareness. Abigail is a member of the International Association for Food Protection, the Graduate Society for Nutritional Sciences, the American Society for Microbiology, and an alumna of the Mastercard Foundation Scholars program. She served as a student reviewer for the QMC 2022 conference of the Ohio State University Quantitative Methodology Center.