Iyabo Obasanjo is an associate professor of kinesiology at the College of William and Mary. She holds a doctorate in epidemiology from Cornell University, a master's in preventative veterinary medicine from the University of California, Davis, and a doctorate of veterinary medicine from the University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. She was a post-doctoral fellow at Wake Forest University for two years and then worked as a statistician and project manager in clinical research for pharmaceutical drug development for FDA approval. She was appointed Commissioner for Health in Ogun State of Nigeria in 2003 and elected to the Nigerian Senate in 2007, where she was the chair of the Health Committee. In 2011, she became an Advanced Leadership Fellow at Harvard University and explored the issues of governance, leadership and public health.