Dr. Paul Narh Doku is currently on Leave of Absence and serving as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Zayed University, Abu Dhabi, UAE from August 2023. Dr. Doku is a Senior Lecturer with the Department of Mental Health, School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Cape Coast (UCC). He is a Chartered Psychologist in Ghana and also holds professional membership with the Ghana Psychological Association, the American Psychological Association and the British Psychological Society. Dr. Doku holds a Synergy PhD in Psychology (Psychological Medicine and Wellbeing) from the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde, Scotland, UK.
Dr. Doku has a great breadth in his academic career and has published some well cited scientific articles. He has worked mainly on the psychosocial aspects of HIV/AIDS in children and young people, mental health in general, positive psychology and quality of life. He has a strong and varied list of publications, with selected publications in top journals such as Lancet, Lancet HIV, Nature, Nature Medicine, Psychological Medicine, AIDS Care, Plos One Global Public Health, BMC Medicine and BMC Public Health. Dr. Doku is an Academic Editor for both Plos One and Journal of AIDS and HIV Research and does article reviewing for several renowned journals in the health and social sciences. Dr. Doku currently serves as an Expert Assessor for Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC), formerly the National Accreditation Board (NAB) that provides expert review and assessment on undergraduate and postgraduate Psychology, Counselling and Mental Health curricula of a number of Universities and Colleges in Ghana. He also serves as external examiner for Masters/Doctoral theses for universities both locally and abroad.
Overall Dr. Doku shows a strong academic breadth of teaching experience at the tertiary level since 2010 to date. He has, essentially, taught everything Psychology and Mental Health from Introductory Psychology, Research Method, Biostatistics, Rehabilitation and Psychopathology to Health. Counselling and Developmental psychology. As a student-centered individual, coupled with his social constructivist approach to teaching, Dr. Doku is often rated highly by peers and students in his teaching evaluation reports.
Dr. Doku has extensive management experience and has, among other things, been responsible for academic programmes at the Department of Human Development and Psychology, Regent University in Ghana, then as Head of Department. Dr. Doku was the past Head of the Mental Health Department, School of Nursing and Midwifery, UCC. He has also served as the Vice-Dean, School of Nursing and Midwifery, UCC from 2020 to 2022. On the professional Psychologist side, Dr. Doku has served for many years in Hall Tutorship positions for resident students at both Nkrumah Hall, UCC and Jean Aka Nelson Hall, University of Ghana. He currently serves on various departmental and school committees at UCC.
Dr. Paul Narh Doku is an alumnus of the University of Glasgow, the University of Strathclyde, both in Scotland, UK (Doctoral Studies), Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway (MPhil Human Development), and the University of Ghana, Legon - Accra, Ghana (BA Psychology with Philosophy).