Jonathan Oyebamiji Babalola, the 5th substantive vice-chancellor of Bowen, is a professor of Biophysical Chemistry, with over 30 years of research, teaching and administrative experience, spread across Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Ethiopia, Argentina, Italy and India, among others.

Jonathan has made significant contributions to knowledge in hemoglobin reactivities, lipid transfer and membrane fusion, lipid nanodiscs, electrochemistry, electrocatalysis and adsorption chemistry. In the absence of state-of-the-art equipment, he has devised a number of ingenious ways of doing science. He has 136 publications, which include 111 journal articles, 15 edited books, 4 book chapters, 4 conference proceedings and 2 technical reports, and has supervised multiple PhD theses and M.Sc research projects.

He is a recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship, and a senior associate of The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy since 2017. He is a Fellow of the Nigeria Academy of Science, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK), a Fellow of the Chemical Society of Nigeria, a Fellow of the Safety Training Programme of the Committee on Chemical Industry of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), a Pilot Associate of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapon, The Hague, Netherlands and a Justice of the Peace of Oyo State, Nigeria.