Odamtten served as head of the Department of Botany at the University of Ghana on two occasions from 1988 to 1992 and from 1997 to 2001, and oversaw its transformation to become the Department of Plant and Environmental Biology. He was also Chairman of the defunct Volta Basin Research Project VBRP of the university. Odamtten is a former Acting Dean of the School of Graduate Studies, University of Ghana, from 1996 to 1998. Odamtten was Dean of the Faculty of Science of the University of Ghana from 2003 to 2006. Odamtten was a visiting professor to the University of Bremen, Germany and Wageningen University and Research Centre, the Netherlands. He is a reviewer of many international Journals and is currently the Editor-in-chief of the Ghana Journal of Science. In 1992, he served as a member of the International Mycological Association Committee for the Development of Mycology in Africa.That same year he was made a founding Vice President of the African Mycological Association. Odamtten was amongst a group academic experts who were tasked on the establishment of the University of the Gambia in the year 2000. Following this, Odamtten became a member of the University Council of the Pentecost University College from 2001 to 2014. Odamtten was appointed a member of the Ghana Education Service Council in 2002 and served as a member until 2008. In between service on the GES Council, Odamtten became a member of the University Council of the University of Education, Winneba from 2004 to 2008. In 2005, Odamtten was a member of the review panel for science education for science programmes at the University of Botswana and the WHO Expert Committee Group on Aflatoxins in Foods, Republic of the Congo. He also served as a member of the National Codex Alimentarius Commission Committee on Food Additives and Security from 2006. He serves on the expert committee for the annual review of programme of the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana, CRIG.
Awards and honours
He was a one time member of the New York Academy of Sciences. Odamtten was listed in the Dictionary of International Biography Vol.27, for distinguished service and cited in the Marquis Who's Who in the World. He has also served as an Advisor for the International Foundation for Sciences 2000.
Personal life
George Tawia Odamtten married Catherine Neeney Wayoe in 1974. He has three daughters from this marriage. He is a Christian, a church council elder and a patron to Christian Groups in higher institutions in Ghana.
Selected publications
IFFIT Report No. 10 - Studies on the Technological Feasibility of the Application of Dry Or Moist Heat to Grains and Grain Products Prior to Gamma Irradiation: Short Communication, 1980;
IFFIT Report No. 11 - in Vitro Studies on the Effect of the Combination Treatment of Heat and Irradiation on Spores of Aspergillus Flavus Link NRRL 5906, 1980;
IFFIT Report No. 12 - Control of Moulds Causing Deterioration of Maize Grains in Storage by Combination Treatment: A Preliminary Model Study with Aspergillus Flavus Link NRRL 5906, 1980;
IFFIT Report No. 13 - Production of Aflatoxin B1 by Aspergillus Flavus Link in Submerged Static Culture After Combination Treatment of Heat and Gamma Irradiation, 1980;
IFFIT Report No 15 - Production of Aflatoxin B1 During Storage of Maize Grains Subjected to the Combination Treatment of Heat and Gamma Irradiation, 1980;
IFFIT Report No. 16 - Preliminary Studies on the Effect of the Combination Treatment of Heat and Gamma Irradiation on the Keeping Quality of Animal Feed and Cotton Seeds, 1980;
Studies on the Possibilities of Using a Combination of Moist Heat and Radiation to Control Mouldiness in Dried Cocoa Beans, 1980;
Fungi, Man's Allies Or Enemies?, 1988.
Odamtten, G. T.; Clerk, G. C. "Effect of metabolites of Aspergillus niger and Trichoderma viride on development and structure of radicle of cocoa seedlings" Plant and Soil,106 : 285–288
