Born Bennet Ifeakandu Omalu on the 1st September 1968, in Nnokwa, Idemili South, Anambra State, Nigeria, he is a physician, neuropathologist and forensic pathologist, best known to the world for becoming the first to find chronic traumatic encephalopathy in American Football players. He published his discoveries in 2005 but didn’t get the results he hoped for, nevertheless, since then he has reached world fame for his work.
Have you ever wondered how rich Bennet Omalu is, as of early 2018? According to authoritative sources, it has been estimated that Omalu’s net worth is as high as $710 million, an amount earned through his successful career, active since the late ‘90s.
Bennet Omalu Net Worth $710 Million
The sixth of seven children, Bennet didn’t have a pleasing childhood; growing up during the Nigerian Civil War, he and his family were forced to flee from their home to Igbo village of Enugu-Ukwu.
He started learning about medicine at 16 years old when he enrolled at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, eventually graduating with a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery degrees in 1990. He then successfully attended clinical internship, which was followed by three years of unpaid work. He didn’t want to stay in Nigeria as he saw no future for him there, and started looking for scholarships in the USA. He eventually moved to Seattle, Washington State, and started attending epidemiology lectures at the University of Washington. However, after only a year, Bennet left Seattle and settled in New York City – there, he became a part of the Columbia University’s Harlem Hospital Center, where he completed a residency training program in anatomic and clinical pathology, following the completion of which he joined Cyrill Wecht at the Allegheny County Coroner’s Office in Pittsburgh, as a trainee in a forensic pathology.
By broadening his knowledge and field of expertize, Bennet was now ready to work on his own, but before that he received a number of prestigious advanced degrees and board certifications, while also receiving fellowships in pathology and neuropathology from the University of Pittsburgh, then Master of Public Health in epidemiology from University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, among others.
In 2007, he became the chief medical examiner of San Joaquin County, California, but after ten years left his post, after discovering that the county’s Sheriff interfered with evidence in order to protect police officers from being jailed for unnecessarily killing people.
Since then, he has focused on his CTE research; back in 2002, he did an autopsy on Mike Webster, a former NFL player, and discovered similar symptoms to those found in boxers after taking hits to the head. He described it as chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and published his research in 2005. Many were against his ideas, trying to deny the similarities, but in 2017 he published the research that helped him to prove his claims, by finding CTE in a living person. He used chemical tracer FDDNP and tested several NFL players, and got positive results in former linebacker Fred McNeill, unfortunately, following his death.
Currently Bennet is a professor at the University of California, Davis.
When it comes to his personal life, Bennet is married to Prema Mutiso; the couple has two children together. He became an American citizen in 2015.
