Dr. Bennet Ifeakandu Omalu (born September 30, 1968) is a Nigerian-American physician, forensic pathologist, and neuropathologist
Dr. Bennet Ifeakandu Omalu (born September 30, 1968) is a Nigerian-American physician, forensic pathologist, and neuropathologist who was the first to discover and publish findings on 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. He is currently the president and medical director of Bennet Omalu Pathology.
Omalu is of Igbo ancestry, and was born in Enugwu Ukwu, Njikoka, Anambra in southeastern Nigeria on 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 predominant Igbo village of Enugwu-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 Enugwu-Ukwu. The family name, Omalu, is a shortened form of the surname, Onyemalukwube, which translates to “he who knows, should speak.”
Omalu began primary school at age 6, and earned entrance into the Federal Government College Enugu for secondary school. He attended medical College and graduated at 21 from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. After graduation with a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery (MBBS) in June 1990, he completed a clinical internship, followed by three years of service work doctoring in the highland 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 arrived in 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.
Omalu holds seven advanced degrees and board certifications, and later received fellowships in forensic pathology and neuropathology from the University of Pittsburgh in 2000 and 2002 respectively, a master of public health (MPH) in epidemiology in 2004 from University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, and a master of business administration (MBA) from Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University in 2008.
Omalu served as chief medical examiner of San Joaquin County, California from 2007 until he resigned in 2017 after accusing the county’s sheriff Steve Moore, who doubles as coroner, of repeatedly interfering with death investigations to protect law enforcement officers who killed people. An assistant forensic pathologist who joined the office for the opportunity to work with Omalu resigned a few days earlier, citing similar allegations.
Omalu is a volunteer associate clinical professor at the University of California, Davis (UCD) Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.
Omalu is married to Prema Mutiso, originally from Kenya. They live in Elk Grove, California and have two children, Ashly and Mark. He is a practicing Catholic and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in February 2015.
