Prof. Osman Sankoh COR, known to most Sierra Leoneans as Mallam O., was born in Warima in Sierra Leone. He attended Tomlinson High School, Songo. He obtained a first degree in Mathematics with distinction from Njala University college, University of Sierra Leone (now Njala University) and pursued further studies ending with a DSc in Statistics from the University of Dortmund (now Technical University of Dortmund) in Germany.
Mallam O. is from May 2023 the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Administration, responsible for Research and Development at the University of Management and Technology (UNIMTECH) in Freetown, Sierra Leone. He is an adjunct professor in the School of Community Health Sciences at Njala University in Sierra Leone, an honorary professor of statistics and public health in the School of Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa and a Visiting Scientist in the Heidelberg Institute of Global Health at the University of Heidelberg Medical School in Germany.
Prof. Sankoh was the Statistician General and CEO of Statistics Sierra Leone (April 2018 to March 2023). He served Njala University from April 2020 to June 2021 as Acting Vice Chancellor & Principal. He was the Executive Director of the INDEPTH Network (2007-2018), a health research international NGO located in Accra, Ghana.
Mallam O. established the Sierra Leonean Writers Series (SLWS) in 2001 and, as his own contribution to nation building, has been publishing books by writers of Sierra Leonean origin and other nationals whose books have a Sierra Leonean context.