23 Facts About Bennet Omalu

Bennet Omalu later became the chief medical examiner for San Joaquin County, California, and is a professor at the University of California, Davis, department of medical pathology and laboratory medicine.

Bennet Omalu is currently the president and medical director of Bennet Omalu Pathology.

Bennet Omalu was born during the Nigerian Civil War, which caused his family to flee from their home in the predominant Igbo village of Enugwu-Ukwu in southeastern Nigeria.

Bennet Omalu's mother was a seamstress and his father a civil mining engineer and community leader in Enugwu-Ukwu.

Bennet Omalu began primary school at age 6, and earned entrance into the Federal Government College Enugu for secondary school.

Bennet Omalu attended medical College and graduated at 21 from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Bennet Omalu became disillusioned with Nigeria after presidential candidate Moshood Abiola failed to win the Nigerian presidency during an inconclusive election in 1993 and began to search for scholarship opportunities in the United States.

Bennet Omalu first arrived in Seattle, Washington in 1994 to complete an epidemiology fellowship at the University of Washington.

Bennet Omalu received academic degrees in medicine and surgery from the University of Nigeria in 1990, an American medical license in 1998, and subsequent American board certifications in various areas of pathology and medical management.

Bennet Omalu held fellowships in forensic pathology and neuropathology from the University of Pittsburgh in 2000 and 2002 respectively.

Bennet Omalu received a master of public health in epidemiology in 2004 from University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, and a master of business administration from Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University in 2008.

Bennet Omalu served as chief medical examiner of San Joaquin County, California from 2007 until he resigned in 2017 after accusing the county's sheriff Steve Moore, who doubles as coroner, of repeatedly interfering with death investigations to protect law enforcement officers who killed people.

An assistant forensic pathologist who joined the office for the opportunity to work with Bennet Omalu resigned a few days earlier, citing similar allegations.

Bennet Omalu is a volunteer associate clinical professor at the University of California, Davis Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.

Bennet Omalu suspected that Webster suffered from dementia pugilistica, a form of dementia induced by repeated blows to the head, a condition found previously in boxers.

In November 2006, Bennet Omalu published a second Neurosurgery paper based on his findings in the brain of former NFL player Terry Long, who suffered from depression, and died by suicide in 2005.

Bennet Omalu discovered CTE in the brains of military veterans, publishing the first documented case in a November 2011 article.

Bennet Omalu was the lead author in a study published in November 2017 that for the first time confirmed CTE in a living person.

Konstantine Kyros, an attorney who represented over 60 professional wrestlers in a class action lawsuit against WWE, claimed that Bennet Omalu posthumously diagnosed six wrestlers Kyros represented with CTE.

In March 2018, Bennet Omalu conducted an independent autopsy of Stephon Clark, who had been shot by Sacramento Police officers.

Bennet Omalu said he was standing "firmly in defense" of his findings.

Bennet Omalu previously wrote, Play Hard, Die Young: Football Dementia, Depression, and Death, published in 2008.

Bennet Omalu is a practicing Catholic and became a naturalized US citizen in February 2015.