Dr Francis Tanam Djankpa is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Physiology, School of Medical Sciences in the College of Health and Allied Sciences, University of Cape Coast. He doubles as Head of the Department of Physiology and the Chairman of the School of Medical Sciences Research Committee.

He holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Zoology (First Class Honors) from the University of Ghana, Legon, which he obtained in 2005. Owing to his passion and zeal to learn more about the functions of the body systems in humans, he proceeded to the University of Ghana School of Medicine and Dentistry (Korle-Bu) to study for an MPhil in Physiology and completed it in 2009.

His seasoned teaching and research experience started in March 2010 when he was first appointed as a Lecturer to teach Human Physiology to undergraduate medical students at the University of Cape Coast School of Medical Sciences. With a growing passion to unravel the mysteries of the human body focusing on the Nervous System, he successfully enrolled in the Neuroscience Programme at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Maryland, USA in 2012, where he obtained his PhD in Neurosciences in 2018. Since then, he returned to the University of Cape Coast and has been teaching Physiology and Neuroscience modules at the School of Medical Sciences to undergraduate medical students. Furthermore, Dr Djankpa supervises and mentors students at the University of Cape Coast while mentoring and supporting young Ghanaian graduates who have neuroscience aspirations by exposing them to molecular and cellular research to give them a strong grounding for further studies in this field. 

Dr Djankpa doubles as a Physiologist and a Neuroscientist with a keen research interest centering around the effects of environmental toxins on brain development and body functions; the environmental and occupational health of workers in pollution-prone industries; the effect of traditional head molding on brain development in infants; the pathophysiology of neurodevelopmental disorders and the effect of cerebral malaria infection on brain function. He is the lead investigator at the Department of Physiology Research Laboratory, which he established in 2018. The Laboratory focuses mainly on multidisciplinary research including Neuroscience Research. 

Dr Djankpa is happily married to Mrs. Gladys Djankpa and they have three (3) children. 

My goal is to stimulate learning interests by encouraging students to transform and reflect on instructional content to make meaning out of it by a way of self-directed learning. My philosophy of teaching is the Learner-Centered-Teaching Approach, as inspired by Benjamin Franklin’s saying, “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn”. I believe engaging students to learn by teaching themselves, undertaking exercises of problem-solving and capstone experiences, they can synthesize and demonstrate mastery of content. Consistently throughout the teaching and learning process, I employ self-evaluation, peer-review, and transfer of learning assessment techniques to modify teaching and learning activities. I am successful in achieving a positive outcome of work which helps to build a good rapport between myself and the students and improves overall student performance through giving constructive and timely feedback on students' activities or actions. As an educator of physiology and neuroscience, I endeavor to guide my students in understanding principles at molecular and cellular structural levels of human physiology and neurosciences and the relationship between these structures and human functioning. I utilize tools of this digital era in making teaching and learning resources easily accessible to students via innovative and stress-free means that encourage effective initiatives in learning. Over the years, I have held unto my ideal teaching philosophy of rekindling the interest of learning in students, whiles continuously improving my techniques that enrich teaching content as the data informs according to modern trends. I strongly believe effective learning is achievable by using active, cooperative, and integrated teaching and learning systems that put my students at the center.