Engr. Prof. Sanmbo Adewale Balogun was born on 5th February, 1944. Prof. Balogun holds a BSc. Degree of Ahmadu Bello University in Mechanical Engineering and MSc. And PhD degree of University of Aston Birmingham in Industrial Metallurgy and Management Techniques. He served as a pupil engineer at the Nigerian Railway Corporation and the Western Nigeria Ministry of Works in 1968 and a consultant engineer with Messrs. Simpson Davidson & Partners and Rideman Associates of United Kingdom. He joined the University of Lagos as Lecturer grade II in April 1972 and rose to become a professor of Mechanical Engineering in October 1983.

Professor Balogun received a 6-month UNIDO Fellowship training in Iron & Steel production in three Russian plants in 1973. In 1976/77, he was a Commonwealth Visiting Research Fellow to both the Materials Engineering Department of University of Sheffield and the Steel Casting Research and Trade Association (SCRATA) Sheffield. He developed the procedure for fracture toughness testing of chro-moly-vanadium cast steels and studied the effect alloy composition and vibration on ultrasound attenuation in some austenitic stainless steels.

Professor Balogun has made extensive contribution to both the service and manufacturing sectors of the economy. For many years he carried out Quality Acceptance tests for many steel importers. He has also researched successfully into various problems of industry and preferred solutions to them. Some of such problems include:

Causes of cracking in welded constructional steel rods,
Causes of frequent failure of the roll necks of cast iron nut crackers
Causes of fir-tree defects in rolled constructional steel rods
Phenomenon of edge tearing in cast brass pipe bends.
Causes of frequent failure of cast iron brake blocks of locomotive engines

Professor Balogun has also made tremendous contribution to engineering education. He has served as external examiner for Mechanical Engineering, Production Engineering and Metallurgical and Materials Engineering programmes in many Nigerian and foreign Universities and Polytechnics. He was a moderator of metalwork in a technical teachers college and an assessor of correspondence colleges for accreditation of mechanical engineering courses. He also served COREN and NBTE in accreditation panels for Mechanical and Metallurgical and Materials Engineering programmes. He was the initiator and chairman of the planning committee of the highly successful COREN/CODET conference on the future of Engineering Education in Nigeria in 1991.

Prof. Balogun was the chief interviewer of both the COREN and NSE professional interview panels for Mechanical, Production and Chemical Engineering between 1988 and 2002. He was a foundation member and later chairman of the NSE Graduateship Examination Board. He was a member of the Raw Materials Development Council Task Force on Base Metal, Iron, Steel and Engineering services in 1989 and of the Engineering Materials Sub-committee of the National Committee Engineering Infrastructure in 1990. He is currently the chairman Technical Committee on Iron and Steel of the Standard Organization of Nigeria.

Professor Balogun was the Head of Department of Mechanical Engineering University of Lagos (1986-87) and Dean of Faculty of Engineering (1987-91). He has since March 2000 till date been serving as the foundation head of the University’s new Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering. He is a member of the British Institutions of Mechanical Engineering and Materials and a fellow of the Nigerian Society of Engineers.

SPECIALIZATIONS

• Metal Forming, Fabrication and Foundry Technology