IJEOMA CHIEMELA

I am Ijeoma Chiemela, a NeuroCognitive Biosecurity Researcher, AI-SBCC Architect, and behavioural science practitioner working at the intersection of human behaviour, emerging technologies, global health, and biosecurity.

For more than a decade, I have designed and led Social and Behaviour Change interventions across underserved communities in Nigeria, working across maternal and child health & nutrition, family planning, malaria, WASH, immunization, community health systems, and RCCE during public health emergencies including COVID-19, Lassa fever, Mpox, diphtheria, and cholera.

That experience taught me something that continues to shape my work:

Information alone rarely changes behaviour.

People make decisions within systems of trust, incentives, social norms, culture, identity, cognitive biases, economic constraints, relationships, and institutions.

That understanding became the bridge between my traditional SBC background and my work with artificial intelligence.

From SBC to AI-SBCC

I develop AI-SBCC approaches that integrate behavioural science and Social and Behaviour Change principles into AI-enabled interventions.

My work combines behavioural science, behavioural economics, human-centred design, community knowledge, safeguarding, responsible AI, and behaviour-change measurement to build technology around how people actually make decisions.

I have applied this approach to adolescent health and nutrition, including the behavioural and intervention architecture of EdgeBot. This AI-enabled intervention supports adolescent girls in navigating health and nutrition decisions.

I continue to work across AI-SBCC, AI for Health, behavioural intervention design, traditional SBC, AI literacy, and emerging technology capacity building.

My Research Frontier:

My long-term research focus is NeuroCognitive Biosecurity.

I am interested in what happens as neurotechnology, AI, neuroinformatics, behavioural data, neuroeconomics, and other emerging capabilities begin to converge, particularly where that convergence creates new dual-use risks involving human cognition, decision-making, cognitive autonomy, security, and societal resilience.

Through the Global Biosecurity Institute, I am developing research and policy work around emerging and neglected biosecurity risks.

My developing work includes The Convergence Effect™, which examines how technologies that may appear manageable in isolation can produce substantially different risk profiles when combined with other capabilities.

I am also developing Project HAWK, an exploratory initiative focused on identifying and mapping vulnerabilities arising from the convergence of AI, neurotechnology, behavioural data, and related dual-use capabilities.

My ambition is to help strengthen the research, governance, foresight, and institutions needed to navigate these risks, while ensuring that African perspectives help shape emerging global rules rather than simply inherit them.

Public Health, Nutrition & Social Impact

I am the Founder and Executive Lead of VitalNutrient, a nonprofit working to improve nutrition outcomes among children under five, pregnant women, and lactating mothers.

Our approach applies behavioural science, human-centred design, community systems, and ethical emerging technologies to close the gap between nutrition knowledge and nutrition action.

I also contribute my behavioural science experience to animal welfare. As a 2026 Animal Advocacy Africa Nigeria Fellow, I am exploring how evidence-based behaviour change narratives can lead to improved animal welfare outcomes.

Alongside my social-impact and research work, I contribute to emerging technology capacity building through DataFingers Ltd, a separate DeepTech company working across Artificial Intelligence Literacy, Big Data Literacy, Quantum Computing Literacy, Genomics Data Analytics, Molecular Data solutions, technology development & tooling, and training and capacity building.

What connects my work

There is a consistent thread across my work:

human behaviour and decision-making within increasingly complex systems.

My foundation is behavioural science, SBC, community systems, and public health. My current applied practice sits increasingly at the intersection of behaviour, AI, and health. My research frontier is NeuroCognitive Biosecurity.

I am particularly interested in connecting with researchers, funders, institutions, practitioners, and collaborators working across:

NeuroCognitive Biosecurity • Neurotechnology • Neuroinformatics • Neuroeconomics • Cognitive Security • AI & Biosecurity • Dual-Use Risk • AI Governance • AI-SBCC • AI for Health • Behavioural Science • Emerging Technology Governance

One principle continues to guide how I approach all of these fields:

“The people closest to the problem should be closest to the model.”

For me, responsible innovation means the people most affected by a technology, intervention, or policy should help shape how the problem is understood and how the response is designed.